


What Remains

by jessahmewren



Category: 24 (TV)
Genre: Action, Angst, Drama, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1682834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessahmewren/pseuds/jessahmewren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Season 8 fic.  Jack and Chloe deal with the immediate aftermath of a harrowing Day 8.  Takes place four years before 24: Live Another Day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jack’s lungs strained against his bruised ribs as he powered down the dirty alley, each breath painful and percussive. Above him, threadbare cotton strung between two buildings filtered weak shafts of sullied light. They particulated, then coalesced into a tenuous, milky beam on the alley floor.

He ran. Through ankle-deep clouds of sewer gas, and stinking little troughs of fetid debris, he ran toward the open light.

Jack could hear the distant din of helicopters swooping with their searching eyes. He didn’t have long. So far, he’d been careful to stay in shadow, to slink down alleys and to get lost in pressing crowds, but he would have to break cover eventually. The street loomed ahead.

He stopped, pressed his back against the brick wall to steady his breathing. His side, gilled by stab wounds, tightened and pulled against his expanding chest. He blinked it away. One wound he considered. The other he would not.

It had happened only yesterday. 

Water from a dripping window unit somewhere overhead snaked a thin trail down the rough surface, cooling his neck and back. He leaned his head into the slick wall, shutting his eyes tight. His heart thundered in his chest. Somewhere close, the fhwap-fhwap of chopper blades cut above the noise of the city. They were coming, and he had nowhere to go. 

-0-0-0-

CTU was alive with activity. Previously empty cubicles were filled with personnel, their tense faces awash in the clean, white glow of their workstations. The prior calm that had settled among the three of them only hours before had been replaced by purposeful energy with one focus: finding Jack Bauer.

“Ms. O’Brian. Director?” Chloe looked at the young intern who had abruptly interrupted her thoughts. “I have the hourlies for you, Ms. O’Brien.” Chloe took the report halfheartedly, only glancing briefly at the data pad. She already knew what it said. 

The coordinated effort to find Jack was thorough and enthusiastic. NYPD as well as the FBI were sweeping the area surrounding Jack’s last known location (nowhere near the back lot where she last saw him, however) and were fanning out to cover all points of exit from the island. At least CTU was coordinating the effort; Tim Woods saw to that. She could only hope she’d given Jack enough time. 

Chloe mounted the metal staircase, up to her new office. Hastings’ name was still on the door, and the protocols, while activated exclusively via her authorization, were still in the subnet under his ID.

She sat down at the desk that was still not hers, and wondered nonsensically if items as antiquated and impractical as a stapler and a desk calendar would make her feel like less of an intruder. She doubted it. 

With the touch of a button she activated the privacy shield, frosting the transparent office to opaque. She slid her hand under the top of the desk and depressed a switch, instantly locking the doors. Chloe accessed the old CTU servers, her deft keystrokes rhythmic and successive, searching until she found the right string of code behind which she had hidden a contingency plan long ago…a way to help Jack. 

-0-0-0-

The little shop in Chinatown looked like twenty other shops on the same street. Brightly colored placards festooned the green façade, conversely clashing and contrasting with its lipstick red trim. In the large front window, herbs, roots, and other exotics were suspended on a string to dry. Two white chickens, tied by the feet, hung flaccidly on either side. 

From his shadowy vantage point across the street, Jack waited, watching the entrance. It was late, nearly closing, and Mr. Li would follow the last customer to the door before locking up for the night. He usually did. 

Nearly fifteen minutes passed before a slumped and weathered elder Asian man stepped into the doorway and waved kindly to the departing customer as he elbowed and nudged his way to the crosswalk. Rush hour was madness and foot traffic was thick. Women carried bags of groceries, the tufted tops of carrots and baguettes jutting brazenly from the top. Families, rushing home or to dinner or somewhere else entirely scooted by closing venders, sometimes single file, hands linked and babies crying. A young woman in a pink skirt and sandals parked a bicycle illegally. The street, the sidewalk, and the storefronts hummed with life.

As Li stood watching his patron carefully navigate the colorful crowd of pedestrians, Jack stepped out from the shadow of the building, into the waning light. The shopkeeper saw him immediately, recognition flashing in his dark eyes. He glanced in Jack’s direction, giving him an imperceptible nod as he turned and went back into the building. The man flipped over the “open” sign and closed the door behind him. 

Jack drifted into the swiftly flowing current of people, keeping his head down. He reached the doorway of the quaint little shop and looked around furtively before pushing his way inside. A little silver turtle tinkled faintly above the door as he entered. 

It was dark within, and close. The dry air smelled faintly of ginger, incense, and of the heady smell of animal blood. Jack followed as Li made his way wordlessly to the back of the store, through a beaded curtain and into a small back room. He had known him for a year, since his illness. Since the headaches.

They were manageable at first, and the pain, although incredible, was inconsequential. Instead of ignoring it (which seemed to only magnify its veracity), Jack accepted the pain. It was a part of him, and he of it, its constant presence indiscernible from his everyday constitution. The spot-blindness that accompanied the headaches, however, was something altogether different. 

The disturbing symptom was dangerously unpredictable. He couldn’t drive, couldn’t walk across the street for fear of causing an accident. The episodes of partial blindness came without warning and were long in leaving. When his doctors offered little more than narcotics, he had sought more alternative means. 

Given his painful history with the Chinese, to say Jack had been skeptical at first would be an understatement. But this kindly man with the understanding eyes had done much to help him overcome his prejudices. After six months of acupuncture and holistic therapy, the headaches, and their frightening spells of blindness, were gone. 

He sat down opposite Li in a brocade overstuffed chair that was clearly unaccustomed to stiff posture. He winced a bit, clutching his side as he eased into the too-soft cushion, and allowed himself to relax slightly if only to ease the strain on his ribs.

A young woman with liquid black hair and warm eyes appeared from an adjacent room, noticeably startled by the evening visitor. Mr. Li gestured with a withered hand. “Mei,” Jack heard the man say in Chinese, “bring us some tea.” 

He looked at Jack then, appraising him coolly. The room was little more than a closet and uncomfortably warm. A bare bulb illuminated the space, and Li’s small, dark eyes twinkled in the wake of it. “Why did you come here?”

Jack swallowed, his senses alert and listening, the attitude of the hunted. “I need help, to get out of the country.” He looked down, unsure of how to continue. “The police are looking for me. I--” 

Mr. Li held up a dark hand, stopping Jack’s diatribe. He noticed the abrasions, the perspiration on Jack’s face. “You are injured,” he said knowingly, his eyes traveling to Jack’s side. He motioned for him to show him, and Jack acquiesced. Mr. Li surveyed the wounds impassively, reaching to an adjacent shelf for a poultice or salve of some kind. Mei returned then, carrying a tray of green filigree cups and a squat teapot. She silently poured each of them a draught of the steaming liquid, making a concerted effort not to watch as her grandfather ministered to the man’s exposed chest.

She waited. Jack took the proffered cup gratefully, thanking her in Chinese, and she favored him with a polite smile. The tea was slightly bitter, with a hint of wolfberry, and he sipped it frugally before placing it on the low table between them. “I am sorry for coming here,” Jack began, “but I have nowhere else to go.” 

Mr. Li leaned back, his hands folded stiffly in his lap. His expression was slightly bemused as he looked at Jack from his own chair. “I have watched the television, Mr. Bauer. You are indeed a wanted man.” He made a little gesture with his hands. “But, I cannot judge by what is shown to me, only by what I see. And what I know.”

He looked at him then, turning his head slightly as if suddenly marveling at a new discovery. “You are in more than trouble,” he intuited. “You are in pain. I know. I have seen it on you many times. What else has happened that you do not speak of?”

Jack looked away, avoiding the scrutiny of the old man’s keen eyes. He lowered his head. “I have lost so much,” he said almost imperceptibly. His voice, a painful whisper, was loud to him in the confined space. “I have lost everything.” 

Mr. Li looked at him evenly but not without compassion. “What is there left for you, then,” he asked quietly.

Jack looked at him, his eyes lifeless, his mouth firm. “Nothing,” he said.

Mr. Li considered, betraying the faintest of smiles. “That is where you are mistaken. There is always something that remains,” he drilled his chest with his finger. “In here.”

He stood, extended his hand to assist Jack in standing. “I can help you leave the country, Mr. Bauer, but the journey is yours alone.” 

-0-0-0-


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe gets involved in the search for Jack; Jack attempts escape by taking refuge in a cargo hold.

-0-0-0-

CTU Los Angeles

8 years prior

-0-0-0-

The fragile sterility of CTU Medical was in danger by Jack Bauer’s very presence.  He sat at the end of the pristine exam table, shoulders slightly stooped and still shaking with adrenaline.  His face was smudged with soot and smatterings of blood.  He smelled of the field, of gunpowder and sweat, and his comm unit was still in his ear. 

“Why are we doing this _now_ , Chloe.”

She frowned at him, annoyed by the necessity of giving an answer when she was so concentrated on the task at hand.  “Because,” she punctuated the word peevishly, “I’m supposed to be debriefing you now.  This is the only time we’ll have without being found out.  Now hold still Jack.”

The hypodermic delivery system emitted a _pop-hiss_ as the needle pierced the skin behind Jack’s right ear.  He winced a little, but by the time Chloe withdrew the infusion gun, he felt little more than a warm sting. 

The room they were in was at the end of a long hall, partially secluded.  All eyes were off.  If they _were_ noticed, however, Chloe felt confident in her ability to explain away their little field trip.

Jack rubbed behind his ear, trying to detect the tiny subdermal tracker there.  “How does it work?”

“It doesn’t, not until I activate it.  And then for only forty-eight hours after that.  A satellite communicates with the tracker, pinging your location.”

Jack looked at her steadily, considering.  “What if I’m dead, will the signal still be active,” he asked her evenly.

Chloe folded her arms over her chest, briefly averting her eyes. “Yes,” she said uncomfortably, “It will be.”  They looked at each other for a long, quiet moment. 

“Good,” he said finally.  Jack slid off the table and made it to the door before Chloe stopped him.  “Hey, Jack.”  He turned around to face her, one hand on the doorjamb.  Her features were soft, almost sad as she looked at him.  “This is strictly off the books.  Just in case.” 

He surprised her then, and smiled.  “Yeah.  Thanks, Chloe,” he said as he walked out the door. 

-0-0-0-

 _Just in case._   And that was really all it was supposed to be…a fallback, insurance against a “what if” scenario, a scratch to satisfy an overprotective itch.  And now Jack’s very life might depend on it. 

She’d read the hourlies--they were closing in on Jack.  A traffic cam had picked up a flash of him coming out of an alley on Pell Street in Chinatown.  Units were already responding and it was only a matter of time until the trail picked up in earnest.  Once that happened, there was little Chloe could do to stop it.    

Chloe pinched her nose in frustration.  The junk code containing the algorithm needed to activate Jack’s tracker had been displaced when the old servers were decommissioned, and, because of the amount of micromanaging involved with her new promotion, she had no time to find it.  When she was an analyst, she could easily toggle between tasks and had often done so (often illicitly), especially for Jack.  As the newly appointed director of CTU, however, few times had she been afforded the relative luxury of time at a workstation. 

She cleared the office glass and a world of activity materialized beneath her.  There was a certain amount of safety in the bird’s-eye view, and she secretly wished she could remain in her little nest, working, rather than having to engage in the tedious people-handling often required of her on the floor. 

A map of Manhattan shown on multiple screens, red blips indicating possible Jack sightings.  A few hit on his actual last known location and mapped several possible exit routes.  She stared at the center screen, a modicum of dread snaking its way up her spine.  _He’ll never make it_ , she thought grimly, and she realized then that she couldn’t do it alone. 

Chloe grabbed her phone and dialed the one person she knew who could help.  If he only would. 

-0-0-0-

In the belly of the cargo hold, Jack could see only darkness.  He lay prostrate on the floor, behind large crates of exported goods, cramped, cold, and exhausted.  Beside him, in a rucksack, lay the parcel of supplies Li had packed for him.

The hold was large, substantially large, he could feel that, but the inky black was a velvet shroud so complete he could only make out the rough outline of shapes around him.  He could not see, so he listened.  And he waited.

The container ship, a bloated, hollow beast of steel, sat bobbing in New York Harbor waiting to disembark.  Li’s nephew worked on the docks, with the international freightliners, and had smuggled Jack aboard.  Jack didn’t even know where he was headed.  He scarcely knew where he’d been.

The last day and a half flew by in a dizzying deluge of images.  Lying there with no distractions, Jack was powerless against the onslaught.  Memories threatened to drown him in a caustic downpour, a gallery of pain to which Jack was the only audience.

Alone in the quiet, permeating dark, he remembered. 

Teri, at the zoo.  A bear swatted at a frozen block of fruit, and she giggled.  Her eyes, her mother’s eyes, wide in the gift shop.  She could have anything she wanted.  He would never see her again. 

And Renee, in his arms.  Her breath in little hitches, warming his neck.  Her haunted face through the glass at CTU.  Her hands at his apartment, restless, worrying her wrist.  Her eyes…deep, trusting, lost.

 _Li was right_ , Jack thought in the darkness.  _Li was so right_.  _An emptied soul soon fills with memories, and those never die._

He felt the tears come then, and he let them.  They took his breath, constricting his chest to the point of agony, and for all his want, there was no release in crying.  Only more tears. 

The cold grit of the floor anchored him, breaking his freefall with stoic tangibility.  Later, with the tears still drying on his face, it pulled him into a restless sleep.  He did not dream. 

-0-0-0-

Chloe took a deep breath, steeling her nerves before entering the small front waiting area at CTU.  He was sitting in a chair against the wall, his head down.  The sleeves of his white long-sleeved button down were rolled up to mid-forearm, and his hands were on his knees.  He didn’t see her.

“Hi,” she said, a little abashed.

Morris looked up, crossed to her, and kissed her gently.  He studied her face.  “Bloody hell sweetheart, you look exhausted,” he said wryly. 

Chloe feigned annoyance, rolling her eyes.  “Good to see you too,” she deadpanned.

Morris looked at her then, a little more seriously, and grabbed her hand, pulling her into a nearby chair.  “You said it was urgent.  What’s this about?”

“I need you to find some data for me,” she downplayed.  “Some junk code, on the old servers.”  Morris’s eyes widened at that, and he did nothing to hide his indignation.  “The decommissioned ones?  Can’t you get an analyst, darling?  I took our son to the sitter for this.” 

Chloe worked her mouth, impatient and unsure of how she should continue.  “No one else knows the old servers well enough to find it in time,” she said truthfully.  She hesitated before continuing.  “And, it’s sensitive.”

He stood, paced a little and smoothed a hand over his head.  He looked at her, resigning himself to a very distinct (if unpleasant) possibility.  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Jack Bauer would it?” 

Chloe said nothing.

“For God’s sake Chloe, you of all people know what that man’s done today.”  He wiped a hand over his face, properly livid, but controlled.  He took a breath.  “He’s a murderer--a maniac, Chloe.  And I’ll be damned if I help him.”

Chloe stood then, leveling him with a steady gaze.  She wouldn’t try to rationalize Jack’s actions, not to Morris, especially since she wasn’t sure if she could do so for herself.  “You don’t have to help Jack,” she said evenly, “But will you help me?”

He shook his head.  “You’re missing the point, Chloe.  You’re not Jack Bauer’s errand girl any more.  You’re director of CTU.  You have a responsibility to find him—“

“Which is what I’m trying to do!”  Her voice was a tad louder than her normal cadence, and she stared challengingly at him.  “Now you can help me, or you can leave.  Either way, I’m going to do what I have to.”

He looked into her determined face.  There was a regrettable (and yes, enviable) proud loyalty there, and it was one of the things he loved about her. 

When he said nothing else, she made for the door, doggedly and without further word.  He sighed.  “Chloe,” he called after her.  It took him twice before she turned, her face pinched and sullen.  He rubbed his forehead briefly, looking at her.  “Tell me what you need me to do,” he said.   

-0-0-0-

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

-0-0-0-

Jack awoke with a start.  Somewhere at the fringes of consciousness, he heard the unmistakable clang of metal against metal.  The sound clattered through the cavernous opening until its echo was swallowed by space.

He instantly tensed, his ears tuned to their highest sensitivity, probing the dark.  _Someone’s here,_ he thought with alarm.  With practiced effort he lay absolutely motionless, stretching out with every nerve-ending. 

There were voices.  Three of them, from what he could tell, maybe fifty feet away, across the hold.  The men spoke in a broken dialect that was common to South Vietnam, and the noise he’d heard was a crowbar as it fell from a careless hand onto the floor. 

_Thieves_.   

Behind him, wood splintered as the lid of a cargo container was pried open and cast aside.  They weren’t professionals, Jack surmised, they were too loud and their methods too primitive.  But they were probably armed, and armed idiots could be as dangerous as trained assassins. 

Slowly and soundlessly, Jack moved to a sitting position, pressing his back against the wooden crate.  He closed his eyes, keeping his breathing steady.  Blood roared in his head, and above the torrent he could hear the close sound of water dripping, matching his pulse beat for beat. 

They had flashlights.  Thick, sweeping beams cast dusty halos around stacks of crates and soaked into the bleak, light-thirsty walls of the hold.  Although it was a mere reflection from where he hid, Jack’s eyes struggled to adjust.  When they finally did he could see, rather than feel, his hand shaking.  He flexed it, flooding it with strength, and pressed it flat against his side. 

Silently, he cursed, and hoped that the generous shadows fed by every pass of their lights would only compliment his meager cover.  

There was more noise now.  Low chatter from the men intensified, followed swiftly by a succession of dull, heavy thuds that rocked the cargo hold as the men dropped their wares against the steel floor.  One swore, and the hushed voices increased in volume.  They were arguing. 

Suddenly, there was movement across from him, against the wall.  Jack narrowed his vision, squinting to see in the dim, jerky strobes from the men’s swinging flashlights. 

It was a rat.  A large, gray-brown ship rat right out of “Three Skeleton Key” stood on its haunches, its little nose working the air, investigating Jack’s rucksack. 

He willed it away.  The rat smelled food, however, and would not relent.  In its clumsy persistence it jumped onto the rucksack, brushing the strap with its pink rope tail.  There was a loud metal scrape as the buckle jangled free and clanked noisily to the floor. 

The voices ceased, and Jack held his breath.  Almost instantly, a bright ray was trained on the exact spot where Jack sat tensed and vigilant behind the crate.  Whispered voices reverberated through the hold, and rubber soles gripped the sandpaper floor as someone walked in the direction of the sound, to the far corner.  To Jack. 

-0-0-0-

Chloe stood at the epicenter of CTU, arms folded, monitoring the latest efforts to find Jack.  In fact, _directing_ the efforts.  While the search incorporated resources from all agencies, Chloe O’Brian coordinated the operation.  As director of CTU, she was tasked with finding and apprehending Jack Bauer.  She only intended to do one of those things. 

In front of her, at a large screen, Arlo sat conducting the intricate ballet of drones that looked in on the city.

“Check this sector here.” She pointed at the screen, at a search grid of Manhattan, indicating part of the Lower East Side.

“You know we’ve already checked this area Chloe.  Jack’s not there.”  Arlo maneuvered the joystick anyway, feeling Chloe’s steely glare drilling into the back of his skull.   

She frowned impatiently, ignoring him.  “Check it again,” she said.

Arlo complied, but continued talking.  “We’ve got next to nothing to go on.  If we had even a clue as to what direction—“

“We _have_ a clue, Arlo.  Send the drones over the routes mapped by tactical, but originate them where we last saw Jack, not from their vector.”  She lowered her voice.  “And do it on your screen.  It may take some time, but we’ll find him.  When you have something, notify me directly.”

As she turned to leave, her phone rang.  It was Morris.  “Chloe, I need you up here.”  At the sound of his voice, she looked up at her office where Morris sat sifting through the old servers.  She could see him through the glass, the phone clamped between his ear and shoulder, furiously working the keyboard.

“I’m on my way,” she said.

She mounted the steps quickly and entered the office without preamble.  “What do you have,’ she asked tensely.

“You wrote this program eight years ago, right?”  Chloe nodded as Morris pulled up screen after screen, visibly excited by some new discovery.  “That’s why we haven’t been able to find it.  We’re using current search parameters, Chloe.  Our query has to match the original search grid.  Here.”  He pointed to a string of code, and for the first time Chloe felt like they were making progress.

She brightened, but her face belied any relief.  “Of course.  I don’t know I why I haven’t thought of it,” she said, a bit bemused.  Morris looked at her.  “You’ve had a lot on your mind sweetheart.  Like being the boss.” 

He smiled, maybe a little sadly, and she returned it.  “Now get back down there.  I’ll call you when I have something.” 

-0-0-0-

Cover of darkness was in Jack’s favor.  Ironically, it was also his greatest disadvantage.  Carefully, Jack eased his hand behind his back, to the waistband of his jeans, and slowly withdrew the knife tucked there.  There were no other weapons Mr. Li could offer; he simply never had need of them.  Perhaps another day, Jack might’ve wished he could say the same.

He fingered the black handle tightly, digging into the grip as the man behind him drew closer.  The footsteps placed him in the ten o’clock position, and he was close enough for Jack to hear his labored breathing.  When the man turned to speak to his cohorts, his flashlight wavered, plunging the corner into total darkness. 

Jack struck.  He knocked the flashlight from his hand, sending it skittering across the floor where it spun for a moment like a maniacal disco ball before hitting the corner of a crate and winking out.  Jack wrenched the man’s arm, securing it behind his back with one hand and putting the knife to his throat with the other.  Instantly, a wet slap of nausea settled in his solar plexus, spreading from the screaming bundle of nerves that radiated pain from his injured shoulder.  Pain seared down his side until his grip on the man nearly slipped.  He willed it true, blinking sweat from his eyes, and held on anyway.  The serrated blade of the hunting knife bit into the man’s flesh. 

Shouting now, from the other two.  They fumbled with their guns, cocking them sharply.  The man in Jack’s capture stuttered in jagged, broken phrases, and the two remaining thieves screamed at Jack across the void, blinding him with the flashlights they steadied under their weapons.  As they cursed and spat, the yellow-white beams jittered wildly.

Jack tightened his hold on the man, a mixture of blood and sweat already slicking the blade where it dug into the man’s neck.  “Put your weapons!  Put’em down now or your man dies!” Jack roared, struggling to see their faces behind the corona of light. 

Then, out of the corner his eye, he saw a fourth man.  He was pressed flat against the wall opposite Jack, inching his way along, out of the light.  Flanking him.

Taking his hostage with him, Jack sidled closer to the wall, near the larger crates, for cover.  One of the original three took a blind shot, and the bullet sparked off the wall and embedded itself in the side of the crate.  Jack thought briefly that if there were many more of those, things could go from bad to worse very quickly.  With two shooters and another man on the wall, he didn’t stand a chance.  Somehow, he had to start evening the odds.

Ducking behind a crate, he hit his hostage hard with his fist and the blunt end of his knife, rendering him unconscious.  Bullets pinged above him, nicking the corner of the wooden container.  With one painful heft, Jack boosted the man over the lip of the tall crate, giving the thieves something to shoot at.  He broke cover. 

While the thief he’d captured had not been armed, the fourth man was.  As Jack dashed behind a stack of pallets, he could see the man standing in partial shadow, the dull glint of his 9mm barely a glimmer in the low light.  He held it up, at the ready, and never took his eyes off Jack.  He was smarter, Jack realized, much smarter than the other three, and he knew the dangers of shooting inside a tin can like this.  Just as Jack was about to move again, a sharp report of footsteps and voices bellowed through the hold.

“Drop it!”  “Put the gun down now, do it!”

_Ship security_.  Jack remained in cover but still in partial view of the fourth man who, like Jack, wanted to avoid being seen by the new arrivals.  Behind them there was more shouting, then a volley of gunfire lit up the space.  Someone cried out, and there was a heavy thump as two bodies fell lax to the floor.

Jack tensed inwardly but remained perfectly still, listening.  “Command post, this is Gallant.”  The man’s voice was shaky as he spoke into the radio.  “We have two suspects down.  Repeat, two suspects down, reque--“

Suddenly, as Jack watched, the fourth man stepped from the shadows and deftly fired two quick shots into the pair of security guards.  They dropped to the floor, dead, alongside his felled comrades.

It was just the two of them now, and Jack weighed his options.  They were few, and without breaking his cover, almost nil.  But before he had time to devise a plan, the decision was made for him.

For a long moment the shooter looked into the black space where Jack sat obscured by shadow and the paltry cover.  He probably had a shot, if he would’ve taken it, and Jack thought for a moment that he would.  Instead, he did something totally unpredictable.  He ran.  Toward the back of the hold, he slipped behind some crates and into a narrow passageway, and was gone. 

And a second later Jack knew why.  In the distance, he could hear police sirens closing fast.  Jack picked up a discarded flashlight, cutting through the thick blackness until he reached the bodies.  There were four of them, bent at unnatural angles, bleeding life all over the gray floor of the ship.  He stared down at the security guards, at the neat holes punched in each of their chests.  He took one of their guns and a radio, and pilfered some ammo from one of the thugs splayed on the floor.  He stuffed it into his rucksack and ran, half stumbling, out of the small front doorway where the security guards had entered.  Jack ducked under a leaking pipe before moving stealthily down the narrow hall.  At street level, the sirens grew louder with every passing moment.     

-0-0-0-


	4. Chapter 4

-0-0-0-

Chloe watched as the image on the screen cleared.  A man matching Jack’s height and build, his face obscured by noise and pixilation, materialized on a crosswalk on Pell Street.  His head was down, and from the angle of the traffic camera it looked as though he favored his left side. 

“Zoom in on the face,” Chloe directed the image analyst.  Arlo did so wordlessly, working the track ball with nimble accuracy until the image reconfigured itself.  It did so with little improvement; the man’s features, soft and indiscriminate, could’ve belonged to anyone.  Arlo sighed in frustration.  “That’s the best I’m gonna get out of it.  The cameras in this part of Chinatown haven’t been updated in years.”  He looked up at her.  “I’m sorry, Chloe.” 

She ignored the sentiment, never taking her eyes off the screen.  “Move to the next frame,” she ordered quietly. 

The crosswalk was now devoid of the man’s image.  She considered.  “Can you get another angle on this?  What about other cameras?” 

He shook his head.  “There’s one a block from here, let me see if I can pull something.”  The next frame, time stamped three minutes later, was a still shot of a congested sidewalk---businessmen, families, and everyone else frozen in perpetual stasis.  Then, in the upper right corner, a glimmer of a man in a dark shirt, pushing his way inside a small storefront. 

“Arlo—“

“I’m on it,” he said quickly, having already noticed the lone figure entering the store well after closing time.  He manipulated the controls, zooming in as close as possible within the parameters of the screen.  Slowly, the figure came into view.  Only his back was visible, but as the camera centered, Chloe could discern the dark blue shirt, the strong neck and cropped sandy brown hair.  And the crimson starburst blooming on his left shoulder. 

“That’s him.”  She straightened, now acting with renewed purpose.  Clear this image from the queue,” she said quietly.  “Divert TAC teams from the area, and get me everything you have on that shop.  I want to know exactly what Jack was doing in Chinatown.” 

He hesitated, and she looked at him pointedly.  “If you have something to say, say it now Arlo.”  He turned in his chair, and for a moment, she thought he might.  But whatever was on his mind, he kept to himself.  At least for now.  “No, I’m good.  I’ll get right on it.”   

“Good,” she said.  “Let me know as soon as you have something.”

-0-0-0-

Supporting his aching left side against a rusty pipe, Jack adjusted the handheld radio, tuning the frequency until he heard police chatter.  It was the guard’s, so it was short range, and he found himself wishing Chloe was here to boost its reach. 

Finally, through a burst of static and whine, a broken transmission.  “Unit 9, this is Pardue, respond-- to international port dock number three--shots fir—with possible in—ies on one of the contain-- vessels.  We are four-- minutes out, over.” 

_Four minutes_ _or fourteen, it’s not enough time_ , Jack thought grimly.  Especially given the fact that he was completely unfamiliar with the layout of the ship, and, despite the patch-up at Li’s, he was still badly injured.  He muted the radio and looked at his watch.  Assuming a worst-case scenario, the ship would be crawling with police in about five minutes. 

His main objective was to remain unnoticed, and on the most basic level, that meant putting as much distance between him and the cooling bodies in the cargo hold as humanly possible.  So he ran, feet ringing on the steel grating, as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

-0-0-0-

Chloe stepped into the hall, to a quieter space, and held for the director of CTU Los Angeles.

“Mr. Pelham, this is Chloe O’Brian at CTU New York.  I understand you are responsible for the security detail on Kim Bauer and her family, is that correct?” 

The man on the other end cleared his throat.  “Yes that’s correct.  But I’m not exactly convinced of the necessity of bringing them _here_ , Ms. O’Brian.  Perhaps a safe house---“

“Are they there or not,” Chloe interjected.  She could feel annoyance coloring her cheeks, and she marveled briefly at people’s inability to just shut up and do what was asked of them. 

“They’re here,” Mr. Pelham said casually.  “My men and I picked them up ourselves.  But the woman’s not too happy about it.” 

“I’m going to need to talk to her,” Chloe said prickly.  The man on the other end straightened, yet remained infuriatingly unflappable or nonchalant, she couldn’t decide which.  “Sure Ms. O’Brian, they’re down in Medical now.  I’ll see if I can patch you through.”  

Before Chloe had time to protest the idiocy of  Kim and her family being held there instead of a main conference room, where at least there would be comfortable chairs, an adjacent break room and a television for little Teri, someone answered on the other end.  A scowl cut deeply into Chloe’s face, but for all its ferocity, it did little to convey her dissatisfaction across the miles. 

“This is Chloe O’Brian, director of CTU in New York.  I need to speak to Kim Bauer.”  Chloe waited for under a minute before the call was transferred.

“Hello?” 

“Kim, it’s Chloe.”  She felt a momentary panic in the ensuing silence, and silently chastened herself for not having had the forethought to even consider what she might say.

“Chloe! Oh my God can you tell me what’s going on?  Where’s dad?”

Chloe exhaled, wondering briefly how to proceed.  She settled on the simple, undoctored truth, or as much as she could divulge without endangering Kim.  Obfuscation had never been her forte, anyway.  “Jack’s in trouble Kim.  He’s being pursued by some powerful people.” She worked her mouth.  “People who may try to hurt you and your family just to get to him.”

Chloe could almost feel Kim wilt, her shoulders sag.  She had been here before, far too many times.  It was a moment before she spoke again.  “Is he gonna be ok?” 

Chloe considered.  “I don’t know,” she said truthfully.  “But I’m doing everything in my power to help him.  In the meantime, you need to stay where you are, until we get things figured out.  Ok?  You must stay at CTU, Kim.  You and your family.  You have to promise me that.” 

Kim hesitated, and for a moment, Chloe expected the famous Bauer stubbornness to bull its way through reason.  Instead, Kim exhaled.  “Your dad made me promise, Kim.   He made me promise to protect you.”  She felt tears tighten her throat, catching her slightly off guard, and she pushed them down.  “I know how hard this must be right now, but you have to do this.  For Jack.” 

 -0-0-0-

They were here.  It had been three minutes since Jack had checked the radio, and he could no longer hazard the flashlight.  He could feel, rather than hear, the staccato thump of boots on grated steel reverberating through the thick pipes that snaked along the floor and ceiling. 

For now, he waited.  He could no longer keep moving at his previous pace for the simple fact that, since the police were everywhere, his flight might send him right into a nest of cops.  So he moved quietly now, pressing close against the wall, and only when the footfalls became more prominent in a given direction.  Only now, they seemed to be closing in on all sides.

Jack moved further down a narrow passageway, feeling his way along until it finally opened up.  He found himself in one of the small auxiliary rooms near the boiler room, which was, from what he could discern from the direction he’d been moving and his general knowledge of large ships, probably near the stern. 

The floor was wet, and it was pitch black.  He smothered the flashlight, illuminating it just enough so he could see, and the strong beam gasped weakly under the gray fabric of Mingli’s shirt.  The resultant ambient glow cast a gloomy phosphorescence on the slick walls and revealed to him the overall layout of the room.

It was a dead end, and there was little cover.  The room itself was bell shaped, and reminded Jack of the little earthen fish traps he’d made during survival training, when he’d been dropped blindfolded into the bush with little more to work with than the laces in his boots. 

_One way in, no way out_. 

He turned around, back the way he came, and something stopped him.  A noise like rattling keys and the growl of a police radio tumbled down the narrow passageway that funneled into the enclosure.  Jack quickly extinguished the light and recalled what he’d memorized about the room’s topography.  He pressed himself against the entranceway, where the neck of the opening fanned out into the larger space.  His mind flashed to those long days in the bush, to those hot mornings when he’d found, with something that could pass for joy, a small fish beached in shallow water. 

A flashlight probed the dark as the officer drew closer, his footsteps on the hard surface threatening to overpower his voice as he spoke into his radio.  Jack drew the gun, holding it at the ready, and blew out a steady breath. 

He was no fish. 

-0-0-0-


	5. Chapter 5

-0-0-0-

Cu`ongran, lungs burning, forgoing the stealth required to conceal his panicked flight.  His feet and breath took tympanic turns, drumming a steady beat that rang obscenely loud in the echoing passage and tumbled down the hall ahead of him. 

In his blind haste he stumbled over a crate, falling, and caught a splintered edge on the way down.  One of the larger shards went straight through his hand, and he cried out.  Warm blood ran in rivulets down his fingers, pooling onto the floor.  As darkness threatened to claim him, he cursed his bad luck.

But his will was strong.  He bit his lip, tasting iron, and focused on the pain.  That, coupled with his throbbing leg, white-hot and pulsing, kept him alert and motivated.  He tore a strip from his shirt and wrapped it around his mangled hand.  Beleaguered, he ducked under a low-hanging pipe and continued, with a pronounced limp now, toward the hatch that would hopefully lead him topside.  There were voices up ahead, low and purposeful, and he could hear the intermittent crack of radio communications ringing through the hollow enclosure.  He slowed, favoring his leg against the cool wall, and attuned his ears to the sound. 

There were three of them, maybe four, and American.  He had a better grasp of the language than his brothers, and from what he could ascertain the men had found the bodies of the two guards and were coordinating, with others, a thorough sweep of the ship.  He also gathered that they were cops, not security guards, and that he was pinned. 

The police officers occupied an area that opened wide into the narrow passageway, and there were few obstacles Cu`ongcould slink behind or use for cover in order to get by them.  Painfully, he lowered into a crouching position, considering his options.  The hatch ahead of him seemed miles away, now, with so many cops standing between him and freedom, and he thought of his brothers, his poor, simple brothers in the cargo hold, who couldn’t get the job done and died because of it.  He held the gun tightly, down by his side. 

He wouldn’t end up like them.

-0-0-0-

Chloe surveyed the assorted articles spread on the table, making mental notes to later amend an individual item or simply ratify its quantity.  The little inventory was an eclectic mix, and from the checklist she had in her mind, it was unfortunately (if not necessarily) sparse.  But it would have to be enough. 

Chloe looked at the small collection, considering each object and its potential to help Jack.  Among other things, a GPS, several cell phones, an identity package.  His medicine.  He had missed a few doses already, and was probably hurting by now.  Jack probably wouldn’t like her to know it, but she was all too aware of the violent symptoms from which he suffered if he did not take his regularly scheduled dose. 

She picked up the small amber bottles, turning each of them slowly in her hands.  _We have to find him,_ she thought urgently.  _We have to find him soon._ Lost in her revelry, she didn’t hear the door open or see the shadow cast on the floor from the new visitor. 

“Chloe?”

Cole stood in the doorway, gaping at the workspace, at the items resting there, and looked questionably at Chloe.  It was too late, she realized, too late to conceal the kit or to inveigle him as to her activities.  She was going to have to bring him in, eventually, anyway.  She looked at him, resigned. 

“Close the door Cole.”

He turned reluctantly and did so, and with a touch of button she locked it.  He made a little gesture with his hands, an odd and futile gesture, and frowned.  “You wanna tell me what’s going on Chloe?”

She sighed.  “I’m looking for Jack on my own, without authorization.”  She averted her eyes, hesitating.  “Me and Morris.”  Cole looked at her challengingly.  “I was told Morris was here on a consulting job.  Now you’re saying that’s not what he’s doing?”

Chloe folded her arms.  “Yeah.  I lied,” she said plainly.

He sat down, visibly surprised, but said nothing.  “We can’t just let him be captured, Cole.  And you know he’ll never make it.” 

He looked at her, considering.  “How are you going to get to him before CTU?”

“Jack has a tracker, but the program that operates it is hidden in the old CTU servers.  Morris is helping me finding it.” 

He looked at her dubiously.  “There’s nothing in Jack’s file about a tracker, Chloe.” 

“Yeah, I know,” she said quietly.  “No one else knew about.  It was something Jack and I did together, a long time ago.”  She looked at him a little sadly.  “Just in case we ever lost him.” 

Cole hesitated, regarding her warily.  “Don’t take this the wrong way Chloe.  But did you ever think that it might do Jack some good if he were caught?  If he’s in prison, then he’s not running.  Maybe he could finally find some peace.” 

She looked at him then, her face an unreadable mask.  “Jack will always be running, Cole,” she said softly.  “And the President would sign off on this if she could.”  She looked at him pointedly.  “You were there.”

He nodded, but said nothing.  She took a few steps toward him.  “I need to know that you’ll be on board when the time comes.”

He shook his head.  “You could’ve trusted me Chloe.” 

A beat.  “Yeah, well I’m trusting you now,” she said finally.

They stood there, looking at each other, and her phone rang.  It was Arlo.  “I had Mr. Jian Li picked up as requested.  He’s on his way to CTU now.  Also, tactical needs you on the floor.” 

“Thanks Arlo.  I’ll be right there.” 

She pinned Cole with an intense stare, refusing to leave without an answer.  He looked at her, considering.  “Yeah.  I’ll do whatever you need me to,” he said finally. 

-0-0-0-

He was close.  Jack measured his distance from the man by the amplified sound of his footfalls in the narrow corridor.  Between steps, the officer spoke into his radio.  “C6, this is Sanderson.  Negative for suspicious activity in north quadrant.  Checking engine control room, now, over.”  Jack held his breath, listening to the steady gait, the intake of the man’s breathing.  Waiting for the perfect time.

The man entered the enclosure, passing right by him.  _Just a few more steps…a few more,_ Jack thought tensely.  He was perspiring, maybe a little more than he should’ve been, and the slight tremor in his hand had grown more distinct in the last hour.  He flexed his fingers, and just as he was about to strike, sulfurous lights winked on along the floor and walls of the ship, illuminating the room in a sickly glow.  His cover was blown, and it was now or never.

He grabbed the man from behind, tightening his arm into a vise as the man choked, sputtered and flailed against his captor.  The police officer managed to twist loose, feinting left, but Jack evaded and quickly countered with a jab to his ribs.  The man lost momentum, and Jack shoved him face first into the slick wall.

The weak light made the room appear jaundiced and played havoc with his dark-adjusted eyes, but Jack could see well enough, and he ground the muzzle into the back of the officer’s neck before spinning him around. 

“How many,” he hissed.  The officer stared at him blankly, his face obviously embroiled in a war between fear and confusion, and Jack stared him down.  “How. Many,” he asked again, this time with a little more emphasis as he moved the gun under the man’s fleshy chin and pressed it roughly upward. 

“Ten,” the officer spat.  “Four units responding, two on the way.” 

“Pick up your radio.” Jack ordered quietly.  “Tell your squad that the engine control room is all clear and that you’re returning to base.”  When the officer hesitated, Jack cocked the gun, jamming it further under his chin.  “Pick up that radio or I swear to you I’ll drop you where you stand.”  He looked the man in the eyes, reinforcing the cold truth he spoke.  Slowly, the officer did as he was told.

“Ok,” Jack said.  He pushed him back, the gun still trained on him.  His hand jittered again, this time with a bit more ferocity, and he had to fight to keep tension on the gun handle.  He looked at the man soberly.  “On your knees; put your hands behind your head.” 

“Listen--” the other man began, but Jack cut him off.  “I said on your knees!”  The officer complied, visibly shaken now but keeping his head.  “Now cuff yourself to the pipe behind you,” Jack ordered him.

The officer looked at him dubiously, eyeing his jangling arm, and perhaps finally recognizing Jack as the man the whole city was looking for.  He said nothing as he cuffed himself to the low slung drainage pipe that ran along the floor. 

He looked at Jack.  “You’ll never make it off this ship,” he said. 

Jack checked the man’s service weapon, baton, and other items and shoved them into the rucksack.  “Yes I will,” he said icily.  “And you’re gonna help me.”

-0-0-0-


	6. Chapter 6

-0-0-0-

She’d insisted on handling this herself.  True, it was a routine inquiry, but if someone had made contact with Jack (and had lived to tell about it) Chloe needed to meet them.

They sat facing each other across a glass table in one of the numerous generic, overly bright rooms at CTU.  Not holding and not an interrogation room, these stark, identically furnished rooms were always readily available to serve a multitude of purposes. 

Jian Li’s hands were folded, relaxed, in front of him, and his expression was quiet and slightly bemused.  His exterior calm and clothing, a hybrid of traditional Chinese and modern American casual wear, presented a startling contrast to the soulless vacuum of CTU.

With one hand she recalled an image on the data pad and pushed it slowly across the table.  The man took it gingerly, holding the object with the care and awkwardness reserved for the unfamiliar. 

“Do you know this man Mr. Li?” 

He looked down at the image.  It was a headshot of Jack, and before he had time to answer, Chloe saw familiarity flash in his eyes. 

He eased the data pad onto the glass, pushing it a little bit in her direction.  “Yes, I know him,” he said pleasantly.  The soft-spoken man had a disarming way about him that Chloe didn’t entirely trust.  She looked at him dubiously.  “How?”

The old man considered, smiling slightly, until he’d settled on an answer he was satisfied with.  “Jack is a friend.”

Chloe worked her mouth, thinking.  Questioning had never been her forte, and she looked at the door, at the corner where the security officer stood, and briefly considered tapping out.  Instead, she recalled another image on the data pad and turned it around for him.  It was traffic cam footage of Jack entering Jian Li’s store.  His face wasn’t visible.

She looked at him evenly.  “What about him?  Do you know this man?”

He took a little longer this time… _or was he feigning ignorance_?  She couldn’t be sure.  After a moment, he looked at her curiously.  “Aren’t they the same man?” 

“You tell me,” Chloe said flatly.  “When’s the last time you saw Jack Bauer Mr. Li.?”

He said nothing.

“Am I in some kind of trouble, Ms.—“

“O’Brian.  Chloe O’Brian.  And you could be, if you don’t tell me what you know.”

Jian Li sat back in the chair, a curious look on his face.  “Chloe,” he said quietly, testing the name.  His keen eyes twinkled a bit, and he nodded.  “Jack trusts you.” 

It was a statement, not a question, and it made her all the more uneasy.  _Maybe that was the point_ , she thought warily, but didn’t have the time to consider it.  She looked at him.  “Help me find Jack,” she said quietly. 

Her phone rang, breaking the silence.  It was Morris. 

“Chloe, I need you up here,” he said excitedly.  “I’ve found it.” 

-0-0-0-

Emergency lights were on all over the ship.  Cu’ong crouched painfully in the yellow glow, behind a wooden crate, willing the police officers to leave.  Just yards away, across the opening, the topside hatch lay tantalizingly out of reach.

They didn’t move, however, and probably wouldn’t.  From what he could discern, this was their base of operations, and without the cover of darkness, he stood little chance of escaping now. 

He closed his eyes, thinking.  He had one more play, but it was a last resort; the end result was the same.  At least the pain in his leg was gone now, but so was most of the feeling.  He looked behind him, at the crisscrossing trail of crimson smeared and tracked on the gritty floor glowing putrid in the sallow light.

After a moment more, he took a breath, steeling his nerves.  _It’s now or never,_ he thought bleakly.  With his injured hand, Cu’ong took the gun and laid it on the floor.  “Coming out!” he called in heavily accented English.  The new voice started a firestorm of shouts and activity from the men inside.  He limped forward, stopping just before the opening.  “Not armed!  Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

He appeared in the space, his arms over his head, trembling slightly.  Two guns were trained on him, and officers on either side grabbed him roughly, pushing him to his knees.  The contact with the floor awakened his injured leg, and he cried out.  “Someone here!” he began saying loudly.  “Someone else, I help you find him!”

Another officer stepped through the small gathering, parting the uniforms with a few forward strides.  Cu’ong was handcuffed now, on his knees, and he looked up at who he determined was the commanding officer with cool strength. 

“Get him up,” the man motioned to another officer.  “Go on,” he said to the prisoner, “I’m listening.”

Cu’ong swallowed, his mind racing to find the words.  “Criminal,” he said finally.  “On the ship,” he stopped, his breath hitching from the pain in his leg.  The officer gave him a hard look.  “We found the guards,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain, “and the other three.  Did you kill them too?” 

Cu’ong shook his head furiously, but the side-to-side motion sent his consciousness into a tailspin.  The room winked out momentarily.  “There was another man,” he said breathlessly.  “Man from the news.  Shooting at us.”   The officer peered at him intently, taking stock of the man’s condition but silently encouraging him to go on.  He turned, speaking low into his radio.  “Units, be advised there may be another suspect onboard. Standby, over.” 

He switched off the radio.  “Did you get a look at this man?” 

He nodded.  It was dark, but from his position on the wall he’d got a good look at his profile, at least.  The officer pulled up a few photos on his PDA, the mugs that had been splashed all over the news outlets for the last few hours.  He showed him the small screen.

Cu’ong squinted, his vision narrowing as darkness threatened to claim him.  “Hey,” the officer said roughly and lightly slapped the side of his face, keeping him awake.  “Any of these men?”  The thief looked at the small screen, the three disembodied heads floating in a saffron haze.  He pointed to a picture of Jack. 

“That man,” he said weakly.  “That man is here.” 

-0-0-0-

Jack palmed the officer’s PDA, searching through the files for a schematic of the ship.  He found none, but he knew that the officer had a good idea of the layout and exit points and had probably reviewed the schematic with his unit before they dispersed. 

“Where did you search before the control room?” 

He looked at the police officer where he sat on the floor, handcuffed to the pipe.  Half moons of perspiration darkened his shirt under the arms, and he was pale.  He looked at Jack coldly.  “Electrical,” he said spat.  “Far end of the quadrant.” 

Jack considered.  Electrical had to have an exit topside, in case of fire, and if it had already been cleared, he wasn’t likely to meet resistance there.  It was as good a place as any.  “Fine,” he said darkly.  Jack was shouldering the rucksack and about to uncuff the officer when the radio crackled to life.

“All units respond.”  Spits of static and dead air popped and whirred in the enclosure.  Jack stopped what he was doing, his eyes fixed on the radio, his heart in his throat.  The vacant voice filled the room.  “Additional suspect onboard is Jack Bauer.  Repeat, suspect on the ship is wanted fugitive Jack Bauer.  Believed to be armed and considered extremely dangerous, over.” 

“Dammit!”

Jack moved to the man quickly, uncuffing him from the pipe and securing the man’s hands behind his back.  He shoved him roughly back through the passageway, his gun firmly pressed into the man’s ribs.  “Let’s go,” he said. 

-0-0-0-

Behind him, Chloe leaned in, her cheeks flushed, fussing over his workstation.  Morris had isolated the precious program and secured it with enough firewall that she could’ve accessed it on the floor of the Pentagon and no one would’ve been the wiser.  He smiled devilishly at her.  “Piece of cake darling,” but knew she was in no mood for jokes.  Eyeing her tense jaw, her focused gaze, he quickly relinquished his seat at the computer.

Chloe worked, her face a laser beam of concentration as she coaxed to life the small bit of code that could be the key to finding Jack.  Morris watched her, mentally going through the steps as he watched her fingers at the keyboard.  It was deceptively easy, child’s play really, and he realized the complexity of this whole affair lay in its deception.  In a few minutes, she was done.

“Now.” 

She stopped, took her hands from the keyboard and held them momentarily floating there.  Waiting.  For all its preemptive stress, the actual activation of Jack’s tracker had proven to be somewhat anticlimactic.

Morris moved to an adjacent workspace, pulling up a shielded screen where they could monitor the tracker when (if) it came online.  He looked at Chloe.  “I can’t link this to your PDA, Chloe.  I’ve only got one secure line, and it’s in this office.”  But she never heard him, or if she did, she didn’t acknowledge him.  Instead, she stared at the black screen.  _No blips_.  Nothing.  She checked the receiving satellite.  It was positioned properly. 

Morris swallowed, knowing Chloe would be less than eager to leave the nest now that she’d found her missing egg, but also knowing CTU needed its director--especially if she expected to keep the hounds at bay while leading the hunt.  He looked at her.  “I can monitor it for you,” he said hopefully.

She nodded absently, her eyes never leaving the screen.  _The blank screen_.  Panic whispered at the edges of her mind, but she pushed it back.  “Check the receiving satellite,” she said to Morris.  “Boost the signal if you can.  Do what you have to Morris.”  She paused, thinking.  “You could even jockey a CTU sat if it’s not strong enough.” 

He frowned.  As soon as the signal from Jack’s tracker bounced off of one of CTU’s satellites, he and Chloe would be arrested, most likely before they could locate Jack, and all of this would’ve been for nothing.  He shook his head.  “No,” he said firmly.  “It’ll work.  I’ll make it work.  Just give me a minute.” 

She looked up suddenly as Cole burst into the room.  He was a bit pale and inexplicably breathless.  “Chloe.  Someone’s spotted Jack.  On a container ship in New York Harbor.” 

Her stomach tightened.  “How good is the intel,” she asked tensely.

Cole took a breath.  “Good.  NYPD has a suspect that says he saw Jack.”  He sobered.  “Says Jack killed his brother.” 

_NYPD._ Chloe frowned, wondering how the hell the cops got there before they did, or how they followed up a lead on Jack without her knowing about it.  Then, in front of her, the little screen fluttered and she caught her breath.  She rushed to the screen, grabbing the sides of the monitor with both hands, staring at it intently as if willing a small ember to flame. 

Slowly, incredibly slowly, a steady white dot blinked rhythmically in the sea of black.  Morris smiled, relieved, and rushed to the other workstation to follow up.  “Triangulating now,” he said tightly.  Chloe forgot to breathe as Morris cross-referenced real-time coordinates with the relational data of Jack’s tracker.  

On screen, a satellite image moved over the landscape, focusing through clouds and smog to depict a grainy image of Manhattan.  The aerial view of the city, with its dingy blues, grays and browns and its symmetrical city blocks, was strangely lovely. 

The three of them stood around the little screen, watching in anticipation as the satellite repositioned, honing in on the exact physical location of the signal.  Of Jack. 

“New Yorker Harbor,” Morris confirmed.  “This area… _here_.”  He pointed to a smaller window, to a grid layout of the international docks.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough for Chloe, and she immediately sprang into action.  “Morris, get me the schematic for every ship docked in that port.  I want crew, manifests, everything.  And refine that signal…I want Jack’s location pinpointed to within a few feet.” 

She looked at Cole, already out the door.  “Get your men together,” she said quickly.  “It’s time.” 

-0-0-0-


	7. Chapter 7

-0-0-0-

\----

Chinatown, NYC

One year prior

\----

Sunlight streamed through the large front windows, spotlighting swirls of fine dust that seemingly hung there, suspended in the new-day stillness of Jian Li’s store.   It was a Friday, just after daybreak, and though the street and sidewalks already stretched and yawned with people, the little store lay sleeping quietly behind the still-locked doors of closing time. 

The room he was in was dim and quiet and smelled softly of sandalwood.  From somewhere close, Jack could hear the faint sound of water trickling over rocks.  It would’ve been a restful, protective environment for anyone else, but he hadn’t slept, couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept more than thirty minutes, and the waking stasis he could usually employ when starved for rest would not come.

He lay on his back, on a piece of tapestry draped over a converted massage table in a back room of Jian Li’s store and waited.

He’d met the herbalist simply by chance, when he’d wandered into his shop looking for a particular tea.  It was springtime, and Kim was staying with him that weekend.  They were expected at the hospital early the next day, for follow-up tests, and he’d wanted to surprise her with her favorite blend.

And, he’d told him about the headaches, the blind spots.  Not immediately of course, and not readily, but the old man had an easy demeanor that seemed to elicit candor.  Besides, it had felt good to talk to someone.

While Jack loved his daughter, he hated her pity, and the guilt he shouldered every time she submitted to a painful test or procedure magnified his own suffering tenfold.  So he went on loving her and quietly hating himself for the pain she must endure—more pain on account of him—and told her nothing of his own.

Mr. Li pushed aside the loosely hanging curtain in the narrow doorway and strode in quietly, his slippered feet scuffing near-soundlessly on the smooth floor.  He held a satin roll of the truest red, a little parcel no longer than his hand, which he placed on a small nearby table. 

“Are you comfortable Mr. Bauer?”                                      

Jack glanced at him.  “You can call me Jack,” he said stiffly, and Mr. Li smiled, untying the ribbon on his curious bundle.  The fabric, embossed with elegant stitchwork and the slightest hint of gold leaf, gleamed mutely in the low light.  Once laid bare, the small acupuncture needles glinted in their satin cradle.

“Are you comfortable Jack?” 

He winced, tightening the fingers of one hand into a loose fist, then relaxing it.  “No,” he said truthfully. 

Mr. Li nodded.  “A lot of pain today,” he said quietly.  It wasn’t a question.  Jack said nothing at first.  “It’s fine,” he said finally.

The old man eyed him curiously.  “If it were fine, you wouldn’t be lying on my table.”

Jack said nothing.

Mr. Li took a breath, all business now.  “Clear your mind,” he said quietly.

Jack closed his eyes.  _Easier said than done, when your brain feels like it’s about to cleave in two_ , he thought dryly.  He tried anyway.

-0-0-0-

Chloe had Morris on comm, getting real-time updates on the status of Jack’s tracker while multi-tasking on the floor at CTU.

She’d handled the NYPD situation as aptly as she could without arousing suspicion.  Since they were already there, had already picked up the trail, she couldn’t exactly pull them off the hunt.  And until she knew _exactly_ where Jack was, and on what ship, she couldn’t misdirect them, either.  And of course, CTU TAC teams where chomping at the bit.

So she’d sent Cole. 

“Morris do you read me.”  She stood back from Arlo, watching as he repositioned the drones over New York Harbor.  It was slow, delicate work. 

“Of course I read you sweetheart, I’m like fifty yards away.” 

She exhaled slowly, and Morris could imagine the choice words that she reserved for those occasions when he pushed her just a little too far already forming in her mind.  “Sorry,” he offered, but smiled in spite of himself.

Chloe largely ignored it, like she did most always.  “Do you have an exact location on Jack?” 

Morris surveyed the screen, the little blip blinking slowly but moving at a steady clip.  “Not yet.  Working.  Got it narrowed down to three ships now.  Sending their port numbers to your phone.”

Near-instantly, her cell hummed in her pocket.  As soon as she was off comm, she would redirect backup and additional units away from those ships.  For the officers already on the scene, well, there was little she could do about that now.  She could only hope that Cole could find Jack before they did. 

-0-0-0-

Cole checked his gear, his PDA, for what must’ve been the tenth time.  No schematic.  Not yet, and they were taking a risk going in blind.  For all the dependence on technology his job required, Cole still didn’t feel comfortable placing his entire trust in it.   

He and five other men sat on a narrow bench in the back of the CTU van as it made its way through Midtown.  Though the windows were darkened, he could imagine the pre-dawn sun threatening to break any moment across the stormy sky. 

Two days now, and no sleep.  He’d gone longer, and he wasn’t even tired, but there was something about sleeplessness that allowed one to take sharper note of the passage of days.

He was tense, wound up, and for what wasn’t the first time in as many days, he wasn’t quite sure what he should be feeling.  He thought of Chloe.  She was a natural choice for director, but her vision was clouded when it came to Jack.  It always would be.  But while he didn’t entirely agree with his current assignment, he would do what she asked.  What she ordered.

He looked at the men, at their furrowed faces taut with concentration.  He could almost map their mental preparations, so palpable was their focus.  They strategized, made plans for combat and acquisition….plans that were not his own.  He activated his comm.

“Chloe, you there?”  A beat. 

“Cole, I read you.  What’s your ETA?”  He looked at his watch.  “About fifteen minutes.  I need that schematic Chloe.”

She paused.  “Morris is working on it.  You’ll have what you need,” she said finally.  “Standby Cole.” 

He looked through the steel grating, into the cab of the van.  The highway bowed elegantly as they bumped along an overpass, commuters easing into the flow from off-ramps, skirting under amber-colored streetlamps that would soon wink out in the light of day. 

“Copy that,” he said quietly, and hoped she was right. 

-0-0-0-

“Get up.”  Jack tugged at the man from where he knelt, slumped in the wet grit of the narrow hall.  He jerked him to his feet, sending a searing line of pain slicing from his shoulder all the way down his left side, momentarily stealing his breath.  He cursed, dragging the man fully to his feet and pushed him forward.  Jack wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.  “How much farther,” he gritted coldly.

The man winced at the strong grip, the cold muzzle grinding into his side and stumbled along the darkened corridor where the weak glow of emergency lights failed to reach them.  He stammered.  “Ten, fifteen yards.  Then a left.  Not far.” 

They continued, Jack slightly behind him, his gun a steady reminder pressing into the man’s back.  They came to a corner and he stopped, his eyes and ears probing the dark. 

_Something_ , up ahead.  _A noise?_   Jack listened more intently. 

_Voices_.  Clipped, efficient.  The cool staccato of men in uniform.

He looked at the officer.  “You son of a bitch,” he hissed, and elbowed the man in the face, knocking him out cold.

Jack left the officer where he fell, still handcuffed, and doubled back the way he came. He ran, taking another path when the current one diverged, until wedging open an oblong metal door into a narrow service corridor.  Once inside, he pressed his back against the cool wall of the passageway, fighting a sudden wave of nausea.  He examined his shaking hand.  Weakness spread from his fingers up the length of his arm, sucking his strength with every tremor.  He stared at it curiously as a bloom of pain spread across his middle, all the way up to his head, and then his knees gave way, plunging him into darkness.

-0-0-0-

Jack opened his eyes, tried to relax a little.  The pain in his head hummed like a tuning fork, finding a familiar note, and his peripheral vision was already gone.  Jack had to turn his head at a sharp angle just to see Mr. Li withdraw one of the tiny therapeutic needles and place it on a tray.  The man saw the tense look on Jack’s face, and gave pause.

“Mr. Bauer?” 

Jack was perspiring, and his pulse doubled as he fought to control his breathing.  “Jack,” he corrected tensely.

“Ok.  Jack.”  Mr. Li smiled pleasantly, and Jack looked at the man’s face, at the needles lying on the low table.  Only they weren’t needles, they were scalpels and a large shard of broken glass.  And this wasn’t Li’s store.  The room dissolved, giving way to the harsh lights of an interrogation cell in China, to bare stone walls and hell in every corner.  With soulless eyes, Cheng peered down at him, into his face 

_Not Cheng_.

He gasped, squeezing his eyes shut, cursing.  When he opened them, Mr. Li had taken a step back and was watching him, somewhat concerned. 

Jack bolted upright, visibly shaken.  “I uh, I don’t think this is going to work,” he said tightly.  He averted his eyes, breathing hard.  “Sorry.”  Mr. Li looked at him, at where he sat, deflated, on the edge of the table.  “It’s alright Jack,” he said quietly.  “It’s alright.” 

Jack looked up, into his earnest face, and almost believed him.   

-0-0-0-


	8. Chapter 8

-0-0-0-

Morris sipped his coffee, watching the search field filter the latest results.  The three freighters were old, with converted engine rooms and quarters, and it was hard to find schematics that were reliably up-to-date for all three.  Unfortunately, Morris was also finding it difficult to hone the signal to a closer proximity, and since he was no longer working in the old databases, he was admittedly somewhat out of his element.  CTU systems here in New York were different, and while he’d been doing consulting work for several firms, none used a matrix quite like this one.  It was unnecessarily complex, and he now understood his wife’s debilitating frustration her first few weeks working here. 

The dataset filed onto the screen, and immediately he began cross-referencing the information with ship-builders, manufacturers, and import/export companies that operate out of New York Harbor.  It was slow and the results were thin at best, but short of a ship-to-ship search, there was little else he could do to find Jack without a stronger signal.

On an adjacent screen, the small blip there shone ghostly white, still as a stone.  Jack was under fire and lying low, that was all.  Or lying in wait.  _Or incapacitated_ , he added mentally, but that was unreasonable and a little paranoid.  Still, the tiny dot seemed to shrink under his scrutiny, its steady blink waning under rapt attention.  _There’s no need to tell Chloe_ , he assured himself.  _Not yet_. 

Seeing the little blip immobilized seemed to ramp up the necessity of finding Jack, however, and Morris began entertaining more “creative” ways of boosting the receiving satellite’s signal. 

He rubbed his head, thinking.  When Jack was pawned over to Fayed all those years ago, he and Chloe had observed the hand-off by hijacking an old satellite he’d once used for some past “freelancing.”  He smiled.  It would work, but he would need some help.

-0-0-0-

Richards walked steadily down the main corridor, carefully shining his searchlight in a wide-sweeping arc, leaving no darkened corner unexplored.  Since the prisoner had identified Jack Bauer as the fugitive aboard, he and his fellow officers were on high alert.  While Richards had not been briefed on Jack’s history, his recent activity was enough for him to warrant extreme caution.

Water dripped intermittingly, falling in big plops from a pipe in the ceiling.  Fat droplets splatted onto the shoulder of his uniform and rolled down his sleeve.  He looked up, searching for the source, and in his blindness stumbled, nearly falling.  He caught himself before tripping over the unconscious form of Officer Sanderson, hands cuffed behind him, his faced crushed into the gritty floor. 

Immediately he grabbed his radio.  “All units, this is Richards.  “We have an officer down.  Repeat, Officer down.  Requesting back-up in north quadrant.  Over.” 

He switched off the radio, kneeling to attend his fallen comrade.  The larger officer was also his senior and, from what he had seen, a good cop.  “Sanderson,” he called, and again with no response.  He quickly uncuffed him, and the apparent pain resultant from his unfolding arms roused him enough to elicit a low, muffled moan.  Slowly, Richards helped the man to a sitting position.  “What happened,” he asked him. 

Sanderson winced, rubbing the soreness out of his wrists before dabbing at the rivulet of blood snaking from his battered nose.  “Bauer,” he grunted.  “Took my gun.  I was leading him to the rally point, but he caught on.  Coldcocked me and took off.”

Richards looked at the officer, silently taking in his condition.  He was satisfied that, aside from the broken nose, he wasn’t seriously injured.  “Well, Bauer left a few bodies back in the cargo hold,” he said a little wide-eyed.  “Sarge says he’s one to watch out for.” 

The older cop scoffed a little.  “You could say that,” he said derisively.  “Damn guy went on a killing spree yesterday and he’s not done yet.”  He held out his hand for aid in standing.  “We gottta find him.” 

The younger officer hesitated before continuing.  “Maybe we oughtta wait for back up,” he suggested mildly, but the other man shook his head, his brow furrowed.  “Screw that,” Sanderson said gruffly.  “We’re going after him ourselves.  The rest can catch up, cover us from behind.  We’ll radio once we’re in position.”  He paused, remembering the tremor, the numerous contusions on Jack’s face.  “Besides, he don’t look too good.  He’ll never make it out of here at the rate he’s going.”  He took the younger officer’s flashlight.  “Let’s go,” he said, boots ringing on the steel grating as they hustled down the hall. 

-0-0-0-

Chloe stood behind the glass, arms folded, her face a pensive mask as she surveyed the floor at CTU. 

Arlo now monitored CTU satellite communications, having put the drones on auto pilot at Chloe’s behest.  On the floor, in public view, she hadn’t wanted them too specific in their search, so the drones now hovered high over New York Harbor, executing a basic search grid.  With Arlo covering his tracks, Morris was free to strengthen the signal of Jack’s tracker by whatever means necessary.

She walked over to him, to the tracker’s screen, eyeing the motionless beacon.  Her face was flat, unreadable.  She knew distinctly that the tracker would keep transmitting for forty-eight hours, no matter what.  No matter Jack’s location or condition it would continue, and although Chloe had designed it that way, its happy continuance in disregard to Jack’s well-being now seemed callous and in some way wrong. 

At the workstation, Morris entered a few more keystrokes, then spun in his chair.  “I’ve got it,” he said excitedly.  His eyes danced, and despite the dark circles under them, the exuberance there gave him a youthful appearance.  When she didn’t respond right away, he frowned, looking at her.  “I said I’ve got Jack, Chloe.” 

She looked at him then, resetting her thoughts, and took a breath.  “Ok.  Get the schematic to Cole.  I want to be on comm as soon as his men are in position.”  Chloe let her eyes travel back to the screen, to that motionless beacon staring at her from the dark.  “Tell them to hurry,” she added needlessly.  

-0-0-0-

The narrow corridor where Jack lay was little more than a warren, a cramped, low-ceiling crawlspace for maintenance workers and crewman to work on the innards of the ship.  It was partially concealed behind a seamless entrance and, had it not been for the small shadow that had moved behind the door handle, he would’ve never even found it.  He would’ve been long-captured now, cuffed in the back of a police car instead of lying half-dead on the wet floor of this maintenance hall. 

At the moment, Jack was having a hard time deciding which was worse.

He moved his head slightly, instantly regretting it.  The floor pitched forward, his stomach lurching, and he dug for purchase with the pads of his fingers lest he slide into a black abyss.  He closed his eyes, forcing them to remain that way until the dizzying parade abated.  Systematically, he took stock of his body and surroundings.

He was pretty beat up, had missed a few doses of meds, but he could be (and had been) worse.  More importantly, he was on a ship crawling with police and had to get out.

With monumental effort, Jack staggered upright, his limbs as weak as a new colt’s, and braced himself against the damp wall.  He breathed slowly, rhythmically, until the ringing in his ears subsided and he was finally able to lift his head. 

_“Think of someone you trust.  Stand with that person against this, in your mind.”_

Li had said that, at the very first session.  Sitting on that table, a shivering mess and utterly embarrassed, Jack had resolved to quit.  The pain in his head he could deal with, was comfortable with.  The other pain he thought he’d long forgotten, but the shadows of his past seemed too long for him to move beyond.

Jack closed his eyes.  In the near distance, through the thin wall of the service corridor, he could hear footsteps, voices, and he knew he had to move.  With a low grunt he righted himself, squinting down the narrow passage as his vision coalesced into clarity.  He could stand upright, but just barely, and he wondered briefly how taller crewman managed the tight space.

Along the floor, emergency lights glowed dimly, illuminating his path with sallow light.  The rucksack, slung loosely over his good shoulder, slapped soundlessly against his hip as he felt along the adjacent wall for a seam, another opening of some kind that wouldn’t send him headlong into a nest of cops.  Beyond the thin wall, the voices grew louder.

He looked down at the radio—tempted, but knowing better than to risk being heard.  If he had a better idea of where they were, he might even push himself to go faster.  As it was now, he was walking blind. 

-0-0-0-

New York Harbor loomed ahead, and the water beyond the massive port glimmered faintly in the distance.  Cole rubbed his hands on the narrow bench, gripping its ledge lightly before checking his PDA again.  _Nothing_. 

He looked across the van, at the adjacent wall, and wondered what would happen when all this was over. 

His career.  Everything he’d worked for, fought for, sacrificed for, all gone.  All because of _her._ At the simple thought of her, his hands flexed into fists, his breathing quickened.  He’d had little time to process the complex range of emotions flooding his mind since yesterday, but there was one that refused to be ignored.  _Shame_.  Overwhelming shame, and the need for redemption.

When all this was settled and he’d served whatever purpose she needed him for now, he wondered how Chloe would view his place at CTU, or if he would have one at all. 

The van hit a rumble strip as they pulled onto the off ramp, mercifully breaking his train of thought.  “Cole, check your PDA.”  It was Morris, his clear voice sullying the perfect silence that had settled over comm.  Cole did as directed, opening the file on his screen.  It was a schematic of a cargo ship called the _Seven Seas_ , and he passed it wordlessly to the driver who viewed it long enough to change direction before handing it back.  Cole studied the screen closely, a labyrinthine tangle of grid lines and hash marks--clean, architectural, and largely indecipherable.  “I can’t link Jack’s tracker to your PDA,” Morris said, “but Chloe’s going to walk you through it.  Standby Cole.” 

He waited, and after a few moments, Chloe’s clipped, businesslike voice rang in his ear.  “Cole.  Are your men ready?” 

There was an edge to her voice that he was unused to hearing from her, a breaking timbre of urgency closely related to fear, and it made him uneasy.  He cast a casual glance at his team, silently strategizing how he would direct their attentions while he separated long enough to find Jack.  “Yeah,” he said quietly, “they’re ready,” but he wasn’t so sure about himself. 

The van eased to a halt, hugging the flat side of a weigh station roughly one mile away from the port.  As soon as the back double doors opened, his men filed out of the van, staying low.  Edging around to the front, they were momentarily dazzled by red and blue strobes of light.  Cole gaped at the sea of patrol cars, somewhat stunned.  “What the hell Chloe, I thought you said only a few units were responding?” 

“Yeah,” she said tightly.  “Additional backup arrived a few moments ago.  SWAT.”  Her voice took on a harder edge.  “You are still ordered to avoid detection.  Is that clear?” 

He nodded mutely to himself before affirming over comm.  “If you _are_ detected,” Chloe continued, “identify yourself and I’ll cover you on this end.” 

Cole looked in the direction of the ship, considering.  Instead of coordinating with NYPD (with whom CTU had an uneasy relationship, especially given recent events) he and his men were to apprehend Jack covertly.  Or, at least that was “official” plan.  Unbeknownst to the others, Cole would aid Jack by doing his best to ensure him a clandestine escape. 

Ideally.  First he had to find him.  “Chloe?” 

“I’m here Cole.  Are your men in position?” 

He glanced at them as they checked their weapons, their faces grim, placid, expectant.    
“Yeah,” he said gravely, “We’re moving in now.”

-0-0-0-

Sanderson listened to the quiet thumps that were coming from behind the wall, placing his hand flat against its surface to gage their distance from the maintenance room’s control panel.  He studied the irrigation grid under the small beam of his penlight, tracing the water main’s location with a grubby finger. 

Richards looked at him curiously.  “Where do you think Bauer’s coming out,” he said quietly.  Sanderson smirked.  “He’s not.  Not soon, anyway.  He’d die in there waiting on us to leave.”  He moved beyond Richards, to a large yellow pipe and a valve release.  In the quiet distance, the little thumps moved steadily away from them. 

“You know what they used to do on these old ships, to get rats out of the walls?”  Richards looked at him blankly, and Sanderson smiled, his swollen nose mutating the expression into a cruel caricature.  “They burned’em.  Or, they flushed’em out.”  With both hands he turned the valve release, bracing his foot against the wall and grunting with the effort necessary to liberate the immense pressure.  Finally, the little wheel rattled loose and a torrent of water thundered through the water main, disappearing into an unseen network of pipes.  He looked at Richards, wiping his hands.  “Now, all we have to do is wait.”

-0-0-0-


	9. Chapter 9

-0-0-0-

Cole and his men edged along the perimeter, staying low and vigilant for any signs of police presence.  Gravel crunched under their boots, and their breath, though near-soundless to anyone else, seemed strident to their fine-tuned senses. 

“Cole do you read me?”

Although he was expecting the intrusion, Cole jumped inwardly at Chloe’s brisk tone.  He put a hand to his ear.  “I read you Chloe.  We are fifty yards out and approaching the south side of the ship.”

Chloe continued, her eyes fixed intently on the screen.  “Ok.  There’s a yellow metal staircase leading to the second deck.”  Cole glanced briefly at the schematic, quickly verifying its location.  “Take it up to the next level and you’ll find a narrow maintenance door.  It’ll be locked, so you’ll have to open it.” 

Cole looked out over the lot, at the tufts of clouds formerly steeped in darkness now heavy with morning light.  He sighted the point of entry.  They would have to break cover.  He motioned to his team and they dispersed in a tight half moon, weapons drawn but keeping low.  Dawn was breaking, and the faster they could board the ship, the greater chance they would have of going undetected. 

As Chloe listened to their quiet maneuvers, she studied the infrared imaging onscreen.  With Arlo watching satellite communications, Morris had been able to utilize CTU resources instead of the borrowed satellite, giving her some infrared capabilities on certain levels of the ship.  It was imperfect, but had he tried to reroute the satellite’s signal, the chance of having sufficient eyes on the ship in time to find Jack would’ve been next to nil. 

The infrared revealed that while the concentration of cops was extensive, it wasn’t the cavalry she’d feared.  Police communications had been harder to monitor, and with all two of her allies already employed (not counting Morris), she was running out of people she could go to for help.

She sighed.  At least Jack was alive and moving.  _Or being moved_ , a small voice whispered quietly, put she promptly silenced it.  _Jack could take care of himself_ , she silently affirmed, _he always had_.  And Chloe was doing all she could to help him. 

She always would.

Chloe happened to look up as Jian Li was being led past her door, to the metal stairs that led to the floor of CTU.  Having acquired Jack’s location and with no reason to suspect him as a threat, she’d signed for his release.  That didn’t mean, however, that she wasn’t still curious about him.

She opened the door to her office just as he was descending the stairs, and she was struck again at how out of place the man looked among the dark suits and grim faces of CTU.  “Stop,” Chloe called after them, and he and his security escort halted abruptly on the second step.  The young security officer looked at her curiously (but certainly not questioningly) as she came to stand before them.  “Mr. Li can I have a word with you?”

Back in her office, they did not sit, nor did the security officer follow.  She looked into his dark eyes, at his chiseled features somewhat less placid than before.  Still on comm, she had only moments before Cole would need further guidance. 

“We found Jack Mr. Li…without your help.”  She watched him closely for a reaction, but the older man only nodded.  He looked at her mildly, visibly concerned.  “Is he safe,” he asked quietly.

Chloe looked down, suddenly very aware of having not slept in nearly two days, and despite her best efforts, felt her eyes sting with tears.  “I don’t know,” she said quietly.  Her voice was small to her and she instantly hated it.  Almost angrily, she blinked away the unshed tears, and they were gone before they’d ever been acknowledged.  Especially to Chloe.  She hardened her face.  “I just hope your noncompliance doesn’t cost Jack his life.” 

Mr. Li looked at her steadily, nodding in that unflappable way of his that had irked her so during questioning.  In her ear, Cole and his men breached the entry point.  She narrowed her gaze at the security officer outside, nodding for their exit.  Mr. Li was halfway out of the office when he stopped and slowly turned to face her.  His face was softened with some indefinable emotion, but he betrayed no smile.  “Help him,” Mr. Li said quietly.  “You’re all Jack has now.” 

-0-0-0-

The pipe overhead shook as water thundered through the main.  Cobwebs and assorted other particles of neglect rained down as a result of the vibration, and it was that dusting of dingy snowflakes, rather than any water, that Jack noticed first. 

And then he heard it.

A slow crescendo, the rumbling empty stomach of a distant beast, a convulsive sputter, then a curious rest.  Jack put his hand against the wall, as much for support as for discernment, and felt the passage shutter beneath the riveted metal.

Almost instantly, water washed forward in a timid wave, deceptively meek as it lapped over his feet in a stubborn forward path, traveling as far as momentum would take it before resting, crepe-thin and tranquil, on the rusty floor.  Jack dug for his light, sweeping it in a jittering arc, and felt his pulse quicken.  He tuned his ears, sharpened his eyes in the near dark, and waited for the other shoe to fall.  _Air in the pipe, that’s all_ , he knew terribly.  The next phase would be torrential, relentless, and the stasis told him it was an intentional release, and not a burst pipe or breach in the hull.

_Have to get out._  

Jack ran, his eyes darting over every surface for a possible exit.  His footsteps boomed loudly down the narrow passageway, his breathing sharp and amplified.  There was no need for stealth.  After all, whoever was looking for him obviously knew where he was.

-0-0-0-

There were three of them.  Many more lay unseen, cloaked in darkness but alert, watching.  And the schematic was useless.  Without infrared or Jack’s signal, the little grid on his PDA was little more than a stop sign to keep him from walking into a wall.  He clenched his jaw.  A fresh trickle of sweat rolled down his temple, and when he spoke, his voice was tight.  “I need eyes, Chloe.”

Over comm he could hear a few clicks, and then Chloe’s even tone.  “Eight.  Five to the right, three directly behind you.  Fifteen yards.” 

He looked at his men who’d heard none of what Chloe had said.  They were good men, capable men, and he had more in common with them than he did with most of the desk jockeys at CTU.  He tensed, wordlessly considering what he was about to do with some regret, despite his reasons.  With a few signals, the men positioned themselves at intervals against the adjacent wall.  In two minutes they would move out, to the right.  Near enough for detection by the five NYPD officers.

It was as clean a plan as he could devise without arousing suspicion immediately, and Cole felt confident he could balm any bruised egos after everything was said and done.  He was ditching a date after all, not betraying them to the enemy, so he really shouldn’t feel that guilty.  But he did.  “Give me a read on Jack,” he said tensely. 

“Closer to the interior of the ship.  One level below you.  Two hundred yards, nine o’clock.  He’s moving pretty fast Cole.  You may have to cut him off.” 

Cole checked his watch, looked at his men, and nodded.  He watched them swiftly file away as he followed behind, keeping to the rear.  By the time they’d settled into their new positions, however, he’d turned and booked it in the opposite direction, leaving them alone.

“Reopen their comm channel so they’re not out there dark,” he told Chloe.  “I’m in position.” 

-0-0-0-

If Jack remembered his physics, given the low ceiling, the narrow passage, and the sheer ferocity of the open main, he had less than an hour before it filled completely with water and he was trapped. 

The little dome-covered emergency lights were fully immersed now, and their orange glow wavered eerily under the foaming surface.  The water was up to his knees, and steeped with a trenchant cold.  Running in it his feet were leaden, and what strength the last seizure hadn’t stolen, the water’s weight and temperature now greedily lapped.

The light’s beam bounced wildly in his other hand as he sloshed through the rapidly rising water, feeling his way along the walls.  The pads of his fingers, softened considerably by the pervasive moisture, bled quietly against the rough surface, but he felt no pain. 

The police radio was wet now, too, and useless.  And if he didn’t find an exit soon, the water level would be too high and the pressure too great to allow him to open it, anyway. 

_Think_ , he prompted himself.  _If this corridor was made to flood, then it was made to drain.  Only the automatic pump system would not be operational on emergency power.  But, there would be a maintenance hatch, a manual override._

_Find the drain, find the hatch._

He increased his pace against the steady torrent, searching now with renewed purpose.

-0-0-0-

Chloe checked in with the floor, read the hourlies.  On “normal” days, CTU ran like a precisely-wound clock, each person quietly carrying out their watchful ministrations with only the occasional need for a director’s fine-tuning.  While this was no normal day by any stretch, there was a little bit of that familiarity creeping into the business of finding Jack, and Chloe was glad. 

According to the hourlies, NYPD had discovered five CTU agents inside their perimeter and were (appropriately) asking questions.  _Cole’s men_.  Of course Chloe had dealt with it accordingly, and the agents were already on their way back to CTU.  They would have questions and Chloe would have answers, but only ones they needed to know. 

She watched Jack’s tracker as it moved in a tight line toward the stern of the ship.  Chloe felt some relief that he hadn’t been captured, at least by the police, and that he was mobile.  Still, a small, dark cloud of fear loomed at the edges of her mind.  _His injuries, and without his medicine…_

This had gone on long enough.

“Cole, are you in the north quadrant yet?”

He stopped, listening.  On either side of him, he heard the staccato thump of boots on steel and the intermittent crack of radio communications.  “Just made it,” he said tensely.  “They’re all around me Chloe.  How many?”

She studied the infrared, focusing the satellite to get a clearer view.  “Four, maybe five Cole.  Ten yards to the right.”  Cole repositioned himself accordingly, and, under Chloe’s direction, found another way around. 

Chloe squinted at the screen, gauging the closing distance between Cole and the tracker’s beacon.  Her heart flipped.  It wouldn’t be long until Cole made contact, and hopefully, all of this would be over.

-0-0-0-

Sanderson had cops covering both of the small exits that spilled into the larger corridor, and from the floundering and knocking from behind the door, it wouldn’t be long until Bauer would come washing out through one of them. 

He smiled.  Bauer was hiding in the maintenance corridor when the water main ruptured.  Or, at least that was his version of events.  No need to tarnish his twenty-year service record by shouldering the confession of a little white lie.  Besides, compared to what this bastard had done, Sanderson’s fib was small.  Insignificant, really. 

But he worried about Richards.  Ever since he turned the water on Bauer, the younger cop had been blanched, antsy.  He wouldn’t roll on another brother, of course, Sanderson wasn’t worried about that, but he was more of a liability as a Nervous Nellie than he was as a green cop.  And Sanderson could use a capable hand.

He called over to him, to where he stood along the main wall.  “Any word on radio?”  Since Bauer had taken his, Richards was the only one with a direct line to base.  Richards looked at him.  “No sir.  Men are in position.  Brooklyn SWAT arrived a few minutes ago.  They’re ready to move in when we have a read on Bauer.

Richards swallowed as more bile rose in his throat.  “ _Pinning the suspect_ ,” that’s what Sanderson had said this was, but he was wrong.  From the report he’d read Bauer was injured, already compromised, and Richards knew he should’ve called for backup when he’d first found Sanderson, and not after he’d followed him off on some vigilante witch hunt.  The young officer stared down at the radio, now silent as it lay limply in his hand. 

In front of him, behind the pressing walls of water and steel, a man drowned.

-0-0-0-

The hatch was small, with a rusted handle he’d torn out his good shoulder straining to budge.  The new physical stress had aggravated the numerous wounds on Jack’s body, and in the soft, eerie glow from the submerged lights, Jack could see he was bleeding into the water like a sieve. 

Jack‘s arms and legs were sluggish in the freezing flood, and though he worked with all possible speed, to his eyes they drudged along in slow motion.  As deftly as possible, he worked the bolt on the bottom hinge with the tip of his knife.  The water was waist-high, now, and he had to hold his breath in order to reach the bottom of the door.

Unconsciousness loomed--a dark, enveloping shroud waiting for him.  But here in this flooded corridor unconsciousness was death, and though at times, especially in China, he had welcomed its velvet embrace, he would not today. 

Jack held the knife in his teeth, working the loose bolt with the raw flesh of his numbing fingers until it slipped out, into the current.  He breathed, steadily and slowly, as the water crept another icy inch up the length of his body.  He grabbed the knife and set to work on the other one.  

-0-0-0-


	10. Chapter 10

“Ten yards, twelve o’clock.”  According to the infrared, there were two figures on either side of the open space, but given their close proximity she couldn’t tell if either of them were Jack.  Chloe tightened her jaw, and despite having faced this situation hundreds of times, her heart beat faster, her stomach quickened.  “Tell me what you see Cole.” 

Cole narrowed his eyes and peered into the dim enclosure.  There was a cop on the right, standing near some sort of control panel, with his back to him.  Cole narrowed his eyes.  No, _two cops_.  One on the left, facing him but looking down, and fidgeting with a police radio.  There was a roar throughout the hollow enclosure, not quiet mechanical but not readily identifiable as organic, either.  The sound seemed like something Cole should recognize, but he couldn’t place it.  He lowered his voice to barely a whisper as he spoke into the comm.  “Two cops, three and nine.  They appear to be alone.” 

 _Not alone,_ Chloe thought as she looked at Jack’s tracking signal still glowing brightly on the grid.  Three men, but only two infrared readings.  She worked her mouth, her thoughts working double-time.  The grim incongruence could mean only one of two things: that Jack’s heat signature was shielded by some unknown interference or, that he was dead.

 _Jack can’t die._ She had filed that away as a maxim years ago, had decided upon it after having shepherded him through numerous hells, seen him shot, tortured, broken, only to rise again like the proverbial hero or villain of so many B-movies.  She clung to it now, but it was only a delusion designed to anesthetize her analytical mind.  Jack was all too human, she knew, in some ways maybe more than most people, and he could certainly die.  

“Are you sure you don’t see Jack, Cole?”  Her voice, just an octave higher than her usual tone, carried a brittle edge.  She stared at the signal, brighter than ever now yet pale in comparison to the heat signatures nearby. 

“Negative,” Cole said tightly.  He swallowed.  “There’s something else.  The ship’s still on emergency power, right?”

“Yes,” she said tightly, unsure of where this was going.  Cole continued.  “There’s a noise here…a roaring sound.  I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.” 

Chloe checked the schematic.  “There is no generator near you, Cole.  Can you get closer?”  From his place in shadow, he eyed the two policemen.  He filed through a half a dozen plans, then dismissed them.  “Not yet,” he said tightly.

-0-0-0-

Things would go faster if he could just stop shaking.  The bone-clattering ague that had seized him in the last few minutes wracked his body in waves, and Jack found it more and more difficult to concentrate on the task at hand.  His mind was clouded, and he found himself looking at his hands in an effort to remember how to make them move. 

The rapidly rising water had so diminished the space that, had the ambient static from the influx of water not been so all-encompassing, Jack’s breath and ministrations would’ve rang loudly against the roof and walls of the flooded corridor.  The space had been tight before, but with less than one third of it now breathable space, the corridor was as close as a tomb. 

Unbeknownst to Jack, he was actually making headway.  There was water leaking out from under the maintenance hatch, but there was no way he could discern a difference in the water level when more was coming in than going out--no way to gauge the progress of his efforts.  He forged ahead anyway, working in near darkness.  An inky black had settled around his feet, up to his knees, and it somehow made the water seem colder, so much so that the cold was a part of him now, a caulking to plug his numerous leaks, a plaque to slow the heart and blood, crippling him.  A few of the emergency lights along the floor had winked out, their older casings having succumbed to the sheer ferocity of the flood.  The few that remained made a brave but futile stand against the pervasive dark.  Jack wondered how long it would be before they relented, too. 

-0-0-0-

Cole looked at his own schematic as the curious din hummed around him.  He glanced at the wall to the right, where both officers now stood strangely interested in the wall and floor in front of them.  Though his voice was low, the rumble from the enclosure just ahead of him did much to conceal his presence.  “To the right of the two officers…is there anything behind that wall Chloe?”

She leaned in, squinting at the screen, and nodded even though he couldn’t see it.  “Yeah, a service corridor.  My schematic says its no longer in use, though.”  She looked at the tracking signal as it blinked alongside the two heat signatures.  She knew the positioning relayed by the tracker was imperfect, but Jack was undeniably in the vicinity.  On screen, Jack was in the passage with the two officers.  On site, he was nowhere to be seen.  _Perhaps…_

Cole cocked his gun, his mouth a firm line.  “I’m going to check it out,” he said tersely, and before she could formulate a response, Cole was pressed flat against the inner passage, moving in shadow. 

-0-0-0-

The dexterity in his fingers was nonexistent, and he worked the bolt above his head with numb stumps of flesh attached to the end of his hand.  Holding his arms like this created new warmth in his shoulder, a rising tide of pain that steadily pulsed, burning hotly in an almost welcome counterpoint to the insidious cold.  His shoulder made him think of Chloe, and he was suddenly glad he’d said those things to her in case—

Thinking like that would only get him killed.  He cleared his mind and, ignoring the shoulder, refocused all his might on loosening the last bolt.

Jack was losing water under the hatch; he could tell that now.  The gentle suction caused by the passing water was barely perceptible against his legs.  It renewed his hope, and the confirmation of his progress seemed to strengthen is will.  But with the new clarity came new questions.  Yes, he was escaping, but into what?  The passageway from whence he came, or the inner bowels of the ship?  It was dark, and with the water, the cold, and his own compromised state, Jack had no way of knowing if he was breaking into freedom or trading one watery grave for another.

-0-0-0-

Cole crept along the inside of the enclosure, his stealth made easier by the dim interior and ample shadows.  The floor was wet, oddly; a good two inches of standing water spread steadily about the enclosure.  The two police officers stood near each other, regarding it thoughtfully and talking, though above the din Cole had no hope of making out the words.  He was a breath away from detection if he didn’t gain the upper hand.

He had to draw them out.  Creeping along the inner wall, he found a support beam or a vertical pipe (he wasn’t sure in the darkness) close to the wall where all the noise was coming from.  On the floor, about an inch of water lapped gently at his boots.

With the slightest of motions, he tapped the metal beam just to the left of him.  The resultant noise was not so predictable as to cause sudden alarm at intrusion, but perhaps irregular enough to warrant inspection.  He hoped.  Despite its proximity to the roar, the metallic ding rang sharply against the thick steel beam.    

Sanderson looked warningly at Richards.  The older cop froze, made a hand signal, and slowly approached the impenetrable dark, his weapon drawn.  Cole held his breath, waiting.

The man drew close.  Any sound his boots made was quickly eaten by the muted wet floor and dissonant rumble from behind the wall.  When he passed into his peripheral vision, to the left, Cole pressed the blunt end of his gun against the man’s temple and smoothly stepped out of the shadows.  “Lemme see your hands,” he said crisply. 

Sanderson complied, backing up slowly under the Cole’s direction, and dropped the gun heavily onto the floor.  Cole leveled his eyes at Richards.  “You too,” he said roughly.  He backed Sanderson into his younger counterpart and cuffed them together.  Pushing them to their knees, he secured them to a pipe underneath the control panel.

Cole leveled his gun at the pair.  “Where’s Jack,” he said, his voice liquid steel.  He followed the younger cop’s finger as it pointed to the adjacent wall.

-0-0-0-

Chloe tried the comm channel again, but to no avail.  Cole had gone dark, which meant whatever he was doing he didn’t need her to hear, or that he preferred that she didn’t.  After an endless moment she heard the crisp pop that signaled his channel was open.

“Chloe.”  Cole’s voice was strained, and she could now hear the noise Cole had mentioned earlier.  It sounded like water. 

“Did you find Jack.” 

Cole pulled harder on the seamless door, prying it open with Richard’s night stick as he helped apply leverage.  “Yeah.  He’s—behind this wall, and it’s flooded—with water.”  His sentences were staccato under the duress of his physical labors, and, though Richards had explained briefly his previous misgivings about Sanderson’s plan and was now trying to help, his effectiveness at getting the door open was limited.

Chloe’s eyes scanned the schematic, looking for a manual override for the water main.  She found it, but it was on the other side of the maintenance corridor. 

“I can’t turn the water off.”  Her voice was thin, as if she was speaking through a straw, and beneath the practiced control there ran a ribbon of cold fear.   “You have to get to Jack Cole.” _Before it’s too late,_ she didn’t say.

“Copy that,” he grunted, as more water streamed forth from the warped bottom of the door. 

-0-0-0-

Jack was having a hard time orienting himself, and the pressure on his chest from the rising water made it difficult to breathe.  He looked down at the water, imagining he could see his face there reflected on the black foam.  Battered, broken, would he recognize what looked back at him?  His body felt warm, suddenly warmer than he’d been since he’d been on this godforsaken ship, and the warning flags that feeling should’ve sent up just weren’t there and he didn’t miss them.  He floated on the warmth a bit, allowing it to buoy him along; just a small moment of rest from the hard work he couldn’t remember doing or for what purpose he had done it.  For just a second it didn’t matter.  He was so tired…

It was morning.  He knew that much.  The water pressed around him, enveloped him, and he could feel Renee’s hair as it fell over his bare shoulder, feel her smile into his neck.  The morning light as it filtered through the windows cast everything in a diffuse glow, and he had the undeniable urge to submerge himself in Renee’s embrace.  As he slipped beneath the water, he was warm and safe and happier than he’d been in a long time. 

-0-0-0-

The small door burst open, slamming against the wall under the immense pressure.  Cole and Richards jumped back, allowing the torrent to expel itself sufficiently as its greedy tide ate its way into open space.  It took a minute or two of steady irrigation to clear the passage enough for them to wade in knee-deep. 

“We’re in.”  To Chloe, the sound of water had grown even louder, and there was a tinny, hollow quality to Cole’s voice.  He looked down at his schematic.  “Where’s Jack Chloe.”

She worked her mouth, mentally doing the calculations necessary to compensate for the space, the signal differential, and the imperfect schematic.  She still came up with only an approximate direction.  She sighed unevenly.  “He’s at the end of that corridor, near the stern.  Maybe twenty-five yards.”  She swallowed.  “Not moving.” 

He and Richards sloshed through the corridor, their lights bouncing off the surface of the water, the close walls.  _If Jack was in here_ , Cole thought darkly, but refused to finish the thought.  “Jack!” he called loudly.  He didn’t care if he was heard.  “Jack, can you hear me?!” 

Up ahead, his light fell on something.  A smudge of dark fabric, a flesh tone amidst the dreary palette.  It was Jack…propped at an unnatural angle, wedged against the door of a small hatch. 

“Oh my God.”

“Cole?”  Chloe’s heart skipped a beat, and her stomach plummeted like an elevator dropping fifty floors.  “What is it?”

Jack’s lower half lay submerged, legs out in front of him as he sat propped against the small hatch.  Cole could see he’d been working on the heavy bolts in the hinge of the small opening behind him and had almost managed both of them.  His arms hung lax beside him, his head lolled to one side.  His face was waxen and gray.  He was a discarded rag doll, slumped and still against the door of the hatch.

Cole rushed to his side, lifting his head from where it lay angled toward his left shoulder.  He slapped him lightly on the face.  “Jack, Jack!”  He shook his shoulders, felt for a pulse.  Richards gaped behind him, little more than debrief fodder for when the paperwork was filed.  Jack’s heart was quiet and still beneath Cole’s fingers. 

Cole hoisted him over his shoulder.  “Chloe, I can’t get a pulse on Jack.”  Despite the chilling words, she stayed eerily focused.  _Jack can’t die,_ she reminded herself, and the comforting lie kept her emotions in check. 

After what seemed like an eternity, Cole burst out of the corridor and onto the floor of the enclosure.  With Richards’ help he lay Jack down. 

Cole began compressions immediately, counting and breathing into Jack’s mouth in the eerie quiet.  Richards had found the manual override and had managed to shut off the main.  The only sounds now were Cole’s sharp, efficient locution, the nervous pacing of Richards, the occasional lapping of the settling water.  And Chloe, over comm, her meticulous monotone assuaging any sign of panic but belying nothing of the terrible dread that closed over her thoughts with every passing moment. 

He sat back on his knees, arms trembling as he looked down at Jack’s still form.  He wiped a shaking hand over his face.  “He’s gone Chloe.” 

Her mouth went dry and she swallowed hard.  “Use the epinephrine.” 

“Chloe—“

“Dammit Cole use it!”  The calm veneer that had been so perfectly in place shattered into a million pieces.

Cole opened the kit he had with him and grabbed the syringe.  He stripped off the plastic cap on the long needle and plunged it directly into Jack’s heart.

A few seconds passed—an eternity, and then Jack coughed, gasping and sputtering for air.  His eyes flew open, wild but looking at nothing, and he coughed up lungfuls of water as Cole leaned his head to the side. 

Chloe exhaled a breath she didn’t know she was holding, and when she spoke her voice was shaky with a cocktail of adrenaline and emotion, but still in check.  “Assess his other injuries.  Get him warm, he’s probably in shock.  Make it to the extraction point and I’ll handle NYPD.” 

She didn’t wait for an affirmative.  She took the comm from her ear and exhaled a long, shaky breath.  Moving to an adjacent workstation, she opened a secure line.

-0-0-0-

“Jack.”  Cole said his name just loud enough for him to hear it, and he waited until Jack’s eyes focused on his face as he leaned over him.  “Jack, it’s Cole.  Chloe sent me.” 

Jack tried to lift his head.  “Chloe?”

Cole pressed him back down.  “No Jack, she’s not here.  Just lie still, ok?”

He closed his eyes.  “Renee,” he said quietly, but Cole didn’t respond.  Cole looked at Richards steadily. 

“I’m gonna need your clothes.”

-0-0-0-


	11. Chapter 11

-0-0-0-

 _Darkness._ Then, a dull light…a blurry ambience beneath his eyelids, and someone speaking.  _Saying his name?_   “Jack.”  The disembodied voice floated down into the depths, finally pricking his consciousness with realization both old and new.

Jack heard Cole speaking but couldn’t understand the words.  _Why was he here?_ He struggled briefly, fought for air.  Voices now a discordant hum…his, Cole’s, _others?_ Was he at CTU?  The voices filled the black void of his conscious mind with stubborn obtrusivity, pulling him from rest.

“Chloe—“

She would know what to do, where he was.  If Chloe was here—

Strong hands urged him gently down, pressing him into the floor.  He did not fight them.  He sank into the velvet black, awareness settling over him like a mantle. 

 _“_ Renee _.”_

His lips were thick, foreign, but somehow he formed the word.  She was gone, he knew.  Gone, and wherever he was he wasn’t with her.  The cold, impersonal steel beneath his back seemed to reinforce that truth, and he grimaced at the pain in his ribs as another coughing fit ensued.  Reality rushed forth like so many unbidden memories… _t_ _he ship…the water._  

He was alive.

-0-0-0-

Chloe sat, her hands on either side of the sleek, Lucite keyboard, staring at the closed door of her office.  An incongruent mix of fear and relief washed over her, nipping at her strength.  She’d found Jack; he was alive.  But this day was far from over.

On the glass desktop, just to the side of her right hand, her cell phone vibrated.  She looked at the flashing LCD and, recognizing a number only a few people had, picked it up with no lack of anticipation.

“Chloe O’Brian.”

The man on the other end wasted no time with banal pleasantries, a directness Chloe could appreciate.  “Ms. O’Brian, did you receive the support you requested?

She took a breath.  “Yes.  Thank you.  They’re in position now.”  She hesitated a moment, uncomfortable with the phone etiquette required when people didn’t really know each other.  “Mr. Woods,--“

Thankfully, he spared her the awkward exchange.  “I didn’t do anything President Taylor wouldn’t have done, had she been in a position to do so,” he said genuinely.  His voice dripped quiet regret.  “And please, call me Tim.”

Chloe quirked her mouth, her version of a small smile.  “Thanks for your help Mr. Woods.”  She paused briefly, unsure of how to continue.  “Um, I’ve got things covered here, have you—“

“Yes, this call never happened.” 

She cleared her throat.  “Good.”  Going to him for help had been hard enough, especially since she was the interim director, and now she was questioning his discretionary means?  She frowned.  “How’s the vetting process going, as far as directors?” 

On the other end of the phone, Tim Woods smiled. 

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.  Congratulations, Director O’Brian.” 

He hung up before she could say anything in reply.

-0-0-0-

Radio chatter had picked up.  The police were narrowing their search, and even with Richards’ periodic check-ins, the rest of the squad would eventually come to investigate this quadrant, too.  Cole knew that it wouldn’t be long until they were surrounded.

There was little he could do for Jack here.  He was no medic, and the supplies he had were rudimentary at best.  What Jack needed most were blankets, IV fluids, and numerous other attentions that were not in his power to provide.  At least he’d been able to rouse him enough to get him dressed.

Cole looked at him, dampness bleeding through the too-small uniform shirt in dark plumes along his arms and chest, and felt something akin to pity.  Jack’s hair was spiked and damp, and his face was the color of wet plaster. 

“You gonna be ok?” 

He sat on the floor, knees up, with his hand on his head.  The officer’s shoes lay beside him, about two sizes too small.  Their patent leather finish glinted mutely in the low light, and his white toes shone.  “Yeah,” Jack said unevenly.  “I’m gonna be ok,” but the words were breathy and ragged and Cole didn’t fully believe them.

Cole looked at his watch, calculating the amount of time they had left.  Finding Jack in this condition had changed everything, and his mind raced to determine exactly what steps he should take next. 

For now, there was no choice but to go forward.  He handed Jack the PDA. 

“The extraction point is here,” he said, indicating a small area on what would be the south loading dock.  As Jack looked at the schematic, Cole regarded him dubiously.  “We’ve gotta move Jack, are you sure you’re ready?”

He handed Cole the PDA.  “I’m ready,” Jack said grimly, clutching his side as Cole took him under the arms and hoisted him off the floor.  “Let’s get out of here.” 

Cole nodded.  Injured or not, Jack was Jack, and Cole was thankful for that fact, at least.  He turned around and activated his comm while Jack put on the remainder of the uniform.  “Chloe, are you there?”

“Here Cole.”  Her voice was tight and focused.  “The extraction team is in place, but I’m going to have to walk you out.  Police presence has intensified.”

Cole’s mouth settled into a grim line.  “How many?” 

Chloe consulted the screen.  “Fifteen in your immediate area.” 

He swallowed, his heart suddenly audible in his ears, and his throat constricted.  “We’ll never make it.”

“No.” Chloe said flatly.  “Not without help.  I’m going to get you two out of there.”  A beat.  “How’s Jack?”

He stole a glance at him.  “I dunno,” Cole said truthfully.  He lowered his voice.  “He’s been through hell Chloe and who knows what’s going on on the inside.” 

Chloe nodded, a minute dip of her head that he had no hope of seeing.  “Let me take care of that.”  She looked at the infrared, at the blips steadily coalescing in their location, and her forehead creased.  “You’ve got to go—now.” 

-0-0-0-

Richards stood watch over Sanderson, his contempt for the older officer growing by the minute.  Not surprisingly, the emotion was mirrored by the man half-sitting, half-kneeling under the control box as he stared up at him.

“What you did back there…you almost killed a man,” Richards said icily.  His eyes hardened to steel points as he glared at him.

The cop made a grunting noise in an effort to speak around the gag, and his upper body bucked lightly with the effort.  Richards raised his gun as he freed Sanderson’s mouth, a gentle reminder that speaking too loudly or yelling for help probably wouldn’t be a good idea.  He leveled the weapon calmly at the older man as Sanderson looked up at him, hurt and contempt written all over his face.

“Turncoat bastard…”

Richards’ hold on the gun grew rigid.  “That’s bullshit and you know it.  If anyone here is a turncoat, it’s you.” 

Sanderson only glared at him as Richards continued.

“We took oaths,” he spat.  “To protect and to serve…and what you did back there was neither.  It was attempted murder.”  His voice dripped acid, and Sanderson couldn’t mask his surprise at both the words and the mode of delivery.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Richards said rather smugly, “Bauer’s alive, no thanks to you.”

Sanderson looked at him, eyes hard, his mouth firm.  When he spoke, there was genuine pain there.  “You have any idea what that sonofabitch did yesterday?  To some of our _own_?”  The last word was so steeped in sorrow that it softened Sanderson’s face, if only for a moment.

Realization began to dawn on Richards.  _Hassan_.  That business with his daughter.  NYPD had gotten tangled up in that yesterday, and they’d lost some men.  Bauer had been running field ops for CTU.

“Those officers got themselves killed and you know it.  If Amos had only listened to Bauer—“

“If Bauer and his cronies hadn’t been there in the first place, Amos would still be alive,” Sanderson countered.  “Probably Hassan, too.  None of that yesterday would’ve ever happened.  NYPD had the situation under control, but CTU always has to be the hero.”

The police radio crackled to life, punctuating the air between them, and Sanderson’s eyes focused on it.  “Officer Richards.”  The crisp, efficient voice called for him twice before he picked it up. 

Richards lowered the gun, looking down at the man he had once respected.  “Revenge isn’t in the job description, Chief.  It never was.” 

-0-0-0-

Jack padded a short distance behind Cole, his breath sharp and piercing against his ribs.  He’d aggravated the multiple injuries from yesterday, no doubt, and had a dozen or so other ills to accompany them.  Pervasive cold still accosted his blood, and his movements were sluggish and somewhat ill-controlled.  He’d also missed several doses of medication, but where one symptom started and another one ended, he couldn’t tell.   

Up ahead, Cole stopped, listening.  He and Jack were halfway to the extraction point, now, but surrounded by police.  Chloe had guided them through some of the heavier concentrations, but due to the imprecise nature of the infrared, Cole had to be vigilant enough for both of them.  They’d had several close calls already. 

As for Jack, he was barely making it.  The simple truth was that he was in bad shape, held together by sheer will.  Cole wondered briefly at that strength that seemed to doggedly drag him along, stubbornly bent on self-preservation.  He moved cautiously forward.

“Cole, you have to double back.”  Chloe’s insistent voice penetrated the stillness of his thoughts, momentarily stopping him in his tracks.  He looked at the schematic, remembering the labyrinthine tangle they’d navigated and Jack’s debilitated state.  “I don’t think we can,” he said tightly.  He looked back at Jack, who, having noticed they were stopped, had taken a moment to gather himself against the supportive wall of the corridor.  He had a hand on his side and sagged slightly over his middle.  “I don’t think he’ll make it, Chloe.”

She set her mouth, thinking.  “Ok,” she finally said.  “Hold your position.  We’re coming to you.” 

-0-0-0-

The ambulance sat about a mile from the weight station, its chrome trim flashing in the morning sun, awaiting further orders.  Chloe had put NYPD and emergency radio communications on a closed-circuit intercept so that all transmissions would be filtered through her.  Unbeknownst to the officers on scene, Chloe controlled all ingoing and outgoing messages.  Morris smiled.  Sometimes his wife’s attention to detail surprised even him.

“112 this is dispatch.  We have an officer down, requesting emergency transport, do you copy?”  The radio cracked and popped, the speaker too loud in the tense stillness. 

The emergency operator ended the transmission abruptly in expectation of a reply.  The driver grabbed the radio, clearing his throat.  “We copy dispatch, 112 is en route, over.” 

Morris opened the little window behind him and peered in at the two medics waiting in the back.  Not knowing Jack’s possible mental state, Chloe had wanted him along, just in case.  After all, it was an ambulance ride that had contributed to his present situation, and Jack might be skeptical of getting into another one, even with Cole there. 

Morris activated his comm.  “Did you get that Chloe?”

“Loud and clear.”  _So,_ _Richards came through_ , she thought, relieved.  “I want to know it the moment Jack is on that ambulance.” 

Morris switched off the comm and looked out over New York Harbor.  Sunlight skimmed the surface of the water, and in the distance, it sparked on the caps of gentle waves, quietly beautiful.  With a nod to the driver, the engines roared to life.  The ambulance bumped and jostled over the harbor’s outer lot as the men in the back made preparations.  Sirens wailed, the radio buzzed with intermittent static, and Chloe waited in the deceptive peace of her office as the ambulance made its way to the loading dock.

-0-0-0-

The medics had brought Cole a change of clothes, and he hurriedly donned the EMT uniform while the real professionals attended Jack.

Jack lay convincingly still, which wasn’t very hard to do considering he felt like hell and looked about as bad.  The medics fussed about him with little exaggeration—Jack’s condition was weaker than they expected and every one of their ministrations proved to be vital.  As a small crowd of police officers began to gather, Cole tried to look busy or at least inconspicuously inactive. 

The ruse was perfectly played.  While the oxygen mask obscured Jack’s face, his uniformed chest was exposed, clearly identifying him as one of New York’s finest.  The medics made smart work of keeping the immediate vicinity around their patient closed to the rapidly growing crowd of onlookers.  The medics’ precise, professional flurry made certain that no one area of the gurney was exposed to scrutiny for any length of time.  With all of the different precincts represented, Jack could’ve been any cop from any one of them. 

The extraction point was now swarming with police presence, and as the small band rushed by with gurney in tow, police officers pressed in on either side of them yelling encouragements and good tidings to their fallen comrade. 

Outside it was bright, and Jack opened his eyes.  The sky was cobalt blue, and it was warm.  The sun’s rays poured their energy into his broken body, filling him, fortifying him, and the warmth reminded him of something welcome, something good.  He found himself drifting in and out, and he scarcely noticed when the medics hefted the gurney into the back of the ambulance, nor was he disturbed by the loud clatter it emitted as it slid into place.   

They were moving, and Jack looked up at the lights in the back of the ambulance, the quilted chrome interior, the shelves of plastic containers and tubing.  Voices and activity swirled around him, intermingling with the sirens as the ambulance sped away.  It didn’t matter where…away was good enough for him.  He closed his eyes.

Morris, in the cab of the ambulance, looked back at where Jack lay ashen against the pristine sheet.  The medics were busy counteracting the poor conditions Jack’s body had endured, and various levels of treatment were happening concurrently in an effort to stabilize him before they made it to the safe house.  Beneath the blankets and numerous other medical implements, he looked frail.  Off to the side, Cole sat as far out of their way as he could given the small space, and when Morris appeared in the window, he looked up at him.    

“Jack,” Morris said quietly.  “Jack.”  Finally, he opened his eyes.  Morris took off his headset and handed it to him.  “Someone wants to talk to you.”

Gingerly, Jack lowered the oxygen mask and angled his head slightly.  He reached back, put the comm in his ear, something he’d done a thousand times.  “Yeah,” he breathed. 

The voice on the other end hesitated only a moment. 

“Jack?  It’s Chloe.” 

-0-0-0-


	12. Epilogue

-0-0-0-

Jack stared into the murky depths of his coffee, the heady aroma wafting from the rim of his cup.  The steam mingled with the smoky atmosphere, twining in and out of the ambience until it became wholly indiscernible from the shimmering veneer of incense and sweet tobacco.

He wondered if Renee had liked coffee.

It had been three years.  Three years since New York.  There was so much he didn’t know, would never know about her, and during his months in exile, he’d had to grapple with the realization that the Russian’s bullet had killed more than a woman.  In one instant it had killed a future.  Two of them, actually.  He would never know her favorite food, what made her laugh.  There had been nothing to laugh at in the short time he'd known her, yet thinking of her never cease to make him smile. 

But not for long.  Renee was a second chance...offered and cruelly snatched away.  So here he sat, in a street café in Morocco, nursing a cup of French press and searching for something to like about another day of life.

It was as difficult today as it was most days.

Jack pushed up the sleeve of his shirt and looked at his watch.  It was 4pm, which meant it was after 10 on the East coast.  He put a handful of Dirhams on the round table and walked out into the dusty street.

He’d had no problems here.  No one knew him or even noticed him. There were enough people for him to get lost, and getting lost is exactly what he needed. 

But then he thought of Chloe. 

He'd followed the trial in the papers; he had seen what they'd put her through.  The embarrassing exposure, the microscope she had endured, all for him.  Chloe had given so much for him, and he'd done nothing but ruin hers.  She'd been convicted of treason, disgraced, and served a year in prison for the crime of her devotion to Jack Bauer. 

Jack walked with seeming purpose, but in reality he had no where to go.  The miserable little flat he called home at the end of the street was hardly a home; the furnishings sparse and with the red/brown dusty appearance that he would always associate with Morocco.  It had been two months and was time to move on.  He shoved his hands in his pockets and headed to the train station. 

With his duffel over his shoulder, he blended seamlessly with the midday work flow.  Bodies pressed around him as he waded through the sea of people and purchased a ticket.  He hadn't made up his mind as to where until he reached the window.  It actually didn't matter because he would never stay there long enough to care. 

Jack waited outside the terminal as the train rumbled to a stop.  One by one the passenger doors opened as commuters and tourists filed out, each with varying expressions of malaise and wonderment, depending on their purpose. 

At the conductor's call, he shuffled toward that entrance.  He was about to board when he saw one of the last passengers disembark. 

Her ink-black hair was shocking at first, as was her drawn appearance, but he could never mistake the bemused scowl that stressed the delicate features of her face. 

_Chloe_. 

He blinked twice, shaking his head against what was surely a mirage, a figment of his haunted mind, an attempt to soothe the gaping ache of loneliness he had endured the past few years. 

But it wasn't.  He watched her cross the platform of the train station, topping and looking ever so often, almost as if she expected to see someone.  Chloe wore a brown leather jacket and dark jeans; her makeup and dress was harder than he remembered, but Chloe had always been a chameleon of sorts, a quality Jack appreciated. 

She fished a burner phone out of her pocket and briefly scrolled through the contacts, but did not all anyone.  When she returned it to her jacket pocket, there were tears in her eyes.

Despite his desire to keep a low profile, Jack could  no longer contain his excitement.  He ran to her, pushing past as many people as he could in an effort to touch the mirage before it disappeared into mist.

"Chloe!"

Her name was carried on the wind, on the train pulling away and the din of people, so she did not hear.  He called her to her again, and he was close enough now for him to see her turn her head into the sound.  Then, there was a ghost of a smile.

She searched for him now, straining to see against the crowd of people.  Then, Chloe saw him.  Stretching forward to meet her, shoving people out of the way and ignoring the ensuing onslaught of profanity and hateful looks.  She closed the space a few more feet and met him there under the awning of the train station terminal.

He was breathing heavily, but it wasn't so much from exertion as it was from the sheer elation of seeing her.  His hand went up to touch her face, and she put a hand on his shoulder.

"Jack." 

She was crying now, the tears trailing unbidden down her face and mudding the kohl eyeliner that rimmed her eyes.  He reached up and smoothed one away with the rough pad of his thumb. 

He smiled, still unbelieving that she was there.  "How did you find me," he said quietly. 

She pulled her lip between her teeth.  "I'll always find you.  I'm in your head, remember?"

He quirked his mouth, remembering all of those hours she'd been his voice in the dark, leading him to safety and away from certain death.  "That's true," he said quietly.

"So much has happened," she said softly, and from the haunted look in her eyes, Jack could tell it was true.  There was anguish there, an untouched sadness and longing that he was well acquainted with.

He reached for her hand, pulling her closer to him.  "Then we should talk about it," he said, meeting her gaze.  There was much to talk about, indeed, and much pain.  He knew the feeling well, only now he had someone to share it with.  Perhaps together they could heal.

She smiled, nodding quickly as she and Jack walked away from the train station hand in hand. 

-0-0-0-


End file.
